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I
LIFE AND TEACHINGS
OF
"ZOROASTER"
THE GREAT PERSIAN
BY
LOREN HARPER WHITNEY
OF THE CHICAGO BAR
AUTHOR OF
*'A QUESTION OF MIRACLES''
PARALLELS IN
THE LIVES OF BUDDHA AND JESUS
THIS WORK ALSO INCLUDES A COMPARISON
OF THE PERSIAN AND HEBREV/ RELIGIONS
SHOV/ING THAT "THE WORD OF THE
LORD" CAME TO THE HEBREWS BY
WAY OF PERSIA
PART SECOND
OFFERS PROOF THAT THE JEWS COPIED
HEAVILY FROM THE HINDU BIBLE
SECOND EDITION
Arranged for publication in its present form by Dr. L. W.
de Laurence, who is now sole owner of this wonderful
work, the same to now serve as "TEXT BOOK" NUM-
BER THREE for THE CONGRESS OF ANCIENT,
DIVINE, MENTAL and CHRISTIAN MASTERS.
Published exclusively by
de LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO.
Chicago, III., U. S. A.
Copyright 1905
LOREN HARPER WHITNEY
OF THE CHICAGO BAR
DONOHUE & CO.. PRINTERS ASD BINDEFIS. 407-429 DEARBORN ST.. CHICAGO
/ ^ ' ^
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Adam Came Alone 37
Angels Direct the Prophet 70
Angels Visit the Prophet 87
Animals in the Ark 15
Apes, The 244
Arabs Victorious 177
Archangel Meets Zoroaster 62
Ark, The 14
Aryans 7,000 Years Ago 78
Astronomy Against Genesis 231
Atheist, Not An 197
Avesta Conflicts with Genesis 10
Babylon, Deluge Story 247
Babylon and Ur 45
Benda, A Border Chief 135
Berosus and Babylon 42
Bibles, Persian and Jewish 13
Birth, Second or Spiritual One 214
Births, Miraculous ■. 21
Blind, Healing of 146
Bodily Resurrection, None 158
Brahmanism Older than the Flood 192
Brahma's Day 237
Bridge, The Kinvad 96
Bum the Wicked 183
Burnt Oblations 215
Captain Cook and the Nails 189
Casts, Four Great Ones 210
Catholics Take Hamistaken for Their Purgatory 101, 183
Chrisna, the Hindu Savior 196
1
2 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Christian Hell, The 159
Chronology Wrong 88
Churches Quarrel 205
Conclusion 188
Conflicting Creeds 205
Convert, Zoroaster's First One 40
Cows of the Sky 81
Creation— When 230
Creations Final Change 169
Creators, Two 113
Creed-makers 193
Dante's Inferno 183
Darkness in the Ark 246
Death of Zoroaster 172
Defeated, If Persia Had Been 176
Deities, Two New Ones 193
Deluge, a Babylonian Myth 18
Destruction of the World 250
Deuteronomy Was Foimd 253
Devil Tempts Zoroaster 72
Devils as Lingiiists 115
Devils in All Religions 76
Diaglogue with the Serpent 233
Dives and Lazarus' Story, The Original 147
Divine Radiance at Zoroaster's Birth 48
Dualism, Doctrine of 105, 187
Early Deities 79
Earth Is Old 38
Egoism, What Is It? 229
Egypt and Zoroaster 166
Egypt Gave the Soul a Trial 164
Evil, Did the Lord Create It? 137
^^Evil, Why It Exists 108
Ezekiel's Vision 120
Ezra and Ezekiel in Babylon 170
Faith No Justification 122
Fasts 206, 207
Fire, None in the Ark 241
^^ Fire Worshippers, Zoroastrians Not 155
First Man and Woma^ , , .35, 36
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
Fish Saved Manu 238
Five Senses, Will They Survive 228
Floods, Two of Them ..236
Future Life Not Taught by Moses 223
Genesis of Hindu and Hebrew Bibles 227
God, The God of 1900 Years Ago on Trial 168
Gods, Elect of Animals 243
Good and Evil Created 34
Gulf, An Impassable One 213
Hamistaken 101
Heaven and Hell Mental States 157
Heaven Has Doors and Rooms 184, 185
Heaven of St. John 186
Heaven Promised 91
Heaven Visited by Zoroaster 63
Hebrews in Babylon 169, 170
Hell Beneath Kinvad Bridge 97
Hell of Christians Not a Drop of Water 160
Hell of Jesus is Barbarous 171, 183
Hell of Persians They Have Foul Food 160
Hell of the Perisans 100
Hells, Persian and Jew 103
Hindu Bible 208, 209
Hindu Eve 238
Hindu Speculation 257
Hindus Our Ancestors 199
Holy Mountains 56
Homer and Zoroaster 140
Hom- Juice 82
Hushedar to Surpass Joshua 151
Immortality Not Taught by Moses 223
Immortality of the Soul 180
Indian History 202, 203
Iranians and Hindus Separate 29
Iranians Older Than Hebrews 58
Jesus Copies Zoroaster 169
Jesus Hell is Barbarous 171
Jesus Hell the Wicked Bum 183
Jews as Copyists 11
Jews Found Their Devil in Babylon 119
4 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Jews Had One God 194
Joshua Fable 150
Karpans, The 136
Kinvad Bridge 96
Legends and Myths 74
Man and Woman Grew from the Earth 35
Many Countries Claim Him 28
Mashaya and Mashyoi 36
Matthew Copies from Zoroaster 184
Metempsychosis 251
Milton's Paradise Lost 221
Miracle, A Great One if True 143
Miraculous Births 21
Miraculous Exits, Many 174
Miraculous Release from Prison 86
Mohammedanism 194
Moon Sacrifices 216
Moses and Zoroaster 149
Moses a Unitarian 226
Oblations, Burnt 215
Osiris Court 2,300 years B. C 200
Noah's Orders 240
Nodites, The 235
Parting of the Tribes 31
Paul and Zoroaster 182
Persian and Hebrew Bibles 8
Perisan Hell 100
Persian Hell, They Have Foul Food 160
Persians on the Oxus 30
Persians Truthful 55
Peter Copies the Hindus 256
Poor, The, Zoroaster's First Converts 67
* Predestination 252
Primal Spirits, Two 109
Prison, In 85
Purgatory and Hamistaken the Same 101, 183
Records 4,000 Years B. C 198
Released from Prison 86
Religion a Matter of Education 162
Religion at Times Depends on Battles 178
TABLE OF CONTENTS 5
Religion Slowly Changing 167
Religions All Have Devils 76
Religious Wars 127
Renovated World 102
Resurrection of the Dead 95
Retribution Not Taught in Egypt 181
Rig- Veda, Its Age 224
Sacrifices 153, 210
Sacrifices to the New Moon 216
Scoffers Punished 144
Serpent and the Lord 233
Seven Thousand Years Ago 78
Shirt, The Sacred .' .' 53
Sin's Penalty 124
Sons to Be Bom to Zoroaster 93
Soul, Immortality of .... 180
Souls of the Righteous and Wicked 98, 99
Spirits, Two Primal Ones 109
Spiritual Birth 214
St. John's Heaven 186
Still in Prison 35
Story, Original of Dives and Lazarus 147
Sudra, His Punishment 232
Swine Flesh Forbidden 222
Tanzis' Ark I9
Theologies Are Inventions 219
Three Hundred Years Ago 189
Translation of Persian Bible 9
Trinity, The I95
Tur, the Scanty Giver 66
Two Creators II3
Visions gg
Visions Are Dreams 148
Visited by Angels 37
Vistaspa §4
Vistaspa Embraces the Faith 156
•War Between Good and Evil 114
War of the Religions . I33
Wars of Aryans 80
Where Did Zoroaster Live ? 33
6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Wicked, The Souls of 99
Wicked, The, to Bum 183
Window, One Only in the Ark 240
Wolf's Den, Zoroaster Flung Into 50
Woman, The First Hindu 239
Word of the Lord Came via Persia 12
World, Its Destruction 250
World Strife 200
World, The Under 118
Worshipped on Mountains 57
Writers of Bibles 39
Yima Builds a Vara 17
Yima, The Persian Noah 17
Zend-Avesta 7
Zerana, Akerana 110
Zoroaster and an Angel Visit Heaven 63
Zoroaster, Attempt to Murder Him 49
Zoroaster Died at 77 Years 175
Zoroaster, His Faith Tested 64
Zoroaster in Prison 84
Zoroaster 6,000 Years Ago 44
Zoroaster Was Named for a Star 24
Zoroaster's Birthplace 25
Zoroaster's Doctrines 26
Zoroaster's Marriage 59
Zoroaster's Mother 47
Zoroaster's Prayer 128
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
§ I. For more than three thousand years the name of
Zoroaster has been known in the world. Yet, during the
middle ages Europe was under such a cloud that his
name and his precepts faded, almost, from the memory
of man. It was known that Persia, until the battle of
Marathon (490 B. C.) was master of Western Asia, and
the doctrines of Zoroaster were dominant in her realm.
But Persia, even as late as three hundred years ago, was,
to Europe, almost a sealed book. With the revival of
learning, however, inquiry began to be made into her
ancient doctrines and their author.
Early Greek and Roman writers had made frequent
mention of Zoroaster's name, and this stimulated later
scholars to know more of him. Travelers in the far East
were not then as numerous as to-day; but they kept
bringing back word concerning the Persian Holy Book,
the Avesta,^ and, finally, some two hundred years ago,
Thomas Hyde, an Englishman, and an Oxford professor
and oriental scholar, undertook to write a history of the
Persian religion. His materials to draw from were
scanty, though he at once discovered, to his amazement,
the striking analogies and parallels, existing between
1 The Avesta is the Holy Book, the Bible of the Ira-
nian or Persian religion. It is called the Zend Avesta.
The prefix *'Zend" seems to have improperly crept into
use in Europe. The translations are called "Zend Aves-
7
8 PERSIAN AND HEBREW BIBLES
Zoroaster's Bible and the Jewish Bible. But he got the
"cart before the horse" in stating that the great Iranian
drank his inspiration from a Jewish fountain. We now
know, to an absolute certainty, the exact reverse of this
to be true. Hyde thought the exiled Jews, in Babylon,
had carried their religion with them, and that Zoroaster
learned from them. How could this be, for the Persian
lived and taught many centuries before the captivity ? ^
We shall find overwhelming proof of this farther on.
§ 2. In the year 1754, Anquetil Du Perron, a young
Frenchman, then only twenty-four years old, a student
of oriental languages, in Paris, chanced one day upon a
fragment of the Persian Bible, the *'Avesta." He had
not the means to transport himself to Persia, but he was
determined to possess the whole work, and also to learn
its language; that he might translate it into his own
mother tongue. Impatient to get away, he enlisted in the
French East India Company, as a private soldier, and
marched with his command through mud and rain to the
port, whence the fleet was to sail. Here he learned that
his government, impressed with his great zeal in the mat-
ter, had ordered his discharge and given him a small
stipend. England and France were then at war, and
there were many delays ; so that he did not set sail until
ta." The word ''Zend" is not the name of an exact lan-
guage ; it is at most only a dialect of Sanscrit. The words
**Avistak va Zend" mean Avesta and translation.
1 shall omit the word "Zend" and use only ''Avesta,"
meaning thereby the Holy Book, or Bible, of the Iranians,
and after them the Persians.
2 Tj^e ]t\\s were carried as slaves, into Babylon, by
Nebuchadnezzar, about 597 years B. C.
TRANSLATION OF THE PERSIAN BIBLE 9
February, 1755. On reaching India he found the whole
country in an uproar, by reason of the war, and added to
this, he suffered a long spell of sickness. On recovering
he renewed, with tireless patience, his great self-imposed
task. On foot and on horseback he traveled throughout
Hindustan, meeting endless dangers and adventures. To
a mind less resolute, or less on fire with a sublime pur-
pose, these discouragements would have been fatal.
After three years of wandering, struggles and dangers,
he reached Surat, where he found a community of Per-
sis, and their priests. Here commenced another struggle,
not dangerous, but not less disheartening.
The priests were unfriendly ; they were neither willing
to part with their books, or their knowledge. They did
not want to teach him the language of the Avesta. But
he persevered and waited, and waited and persevered,
until, at the end of three years more, he won a victory;
not as memorable as Arbela or Waterloo, but one requir-
ing equal courage and fortitude. They not only taught
him their language, but they gave him one hundred and
eighty manuscripts of the Avesta, which he brought back
in safety to Paris, and in 1771 published the first Euro-
pean translation thereof.
It was, at once, assailed as a silly, modern affair, with
stories about demons and angels. There were the names
of trees and plants unknown ; for who in Europe had
ever heard of Hom juice or the Bareshnum ceremony, of
gnomes, and the Kinvad Bridge ? Here was a cosmogony
of the world, and how did Zoroaster and those Iranians ^
3 Persia or Iran, Persians and Iranians I shall use as
meaning the same. The word Iran, at one time, meant
10 THE AVESTA IN CONFLICT WITH GENESIS
know about that? Besides, the Avesta conflicted with
Genesis, and that could not be allowed. But Du Perron
and his work found sturdy defenders, as well as fierce
assailants. The battle for and against the Avesta, among
scholars, raged in Europe for many years; Sir William
Jones, leading the forces against it, and Elenker, a pro-
fessor in the University of Riga, who at once published,
in German, a translation thereof, defending it. But the
more this old forgotten book was studied ; the more sun-
light let in, the more certain it became that here was a
long lost monument of a great people, and a great faith.
Jones, himself, after twenty years of opposition, coming
tardily around to believe in it.
The Avesta has now been under the fire and cross-fire
of critics for one hundred and thirty years.
The question, after all this lapse of time and patient
research concerning this book, which the Iranians, and,
after them, the Persians, call Holy, is as permanently set-
tled, that it was composed by Zoroaster and his immedi-
ate followers, as that the Jewish prophets composed the
works ascribed to them. Such scholars as "Max Miiller,
Roth, Westengard, Duncker, Professor Geldner, Spiegel,
Dr. Haug, Bunsen, Burnouf, Lassen and Rhode, all
agree that there is not the least doubt that the Avesta
contains the books ascribed in the most ancient times to
Zoroaster." They possess all the inward and outward
more than Persia proper. Persis, originally, embraced
only that strip on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf.
They were called Pars — later Persians. Iran and Aryan
once meant about the same. Arya and Aryana, of the
Avesta, are the same.
THE JEWS AS COPYISTS 11
marks of the highest antiquity, and only prejudice or
ignorance can doubt it.*
§ 3. As Professor Hyde found many analogies and
parallels between the Persian and Jewish Bibles, I will
here mention a few, that the reader may catch a glimpse
of this book, in the pages to follow. A statement that the
Jewish prophets drew their inspiration largely from the
Persian Bible, will no doubt be controverted. But it was
"after the return of the Jews from Babylon that the
devil and demons in conflict with man became a part of
the company of spiritual beings, in the Jewish mythology.
Angels there were before, as Messengers of God, but
devils there were not; for until then an absolute Provi-
dence ruled the world. Satan, in Job, is an angel of God,
doing a low kind of work — a fault-finder, but no devil.
He is critical, looking after the flaws of the saints, but
still no devil. After the captivity, the horizon of the
Jewish mind enlarged, and it took in the conception of
God ; as allowing freedom to man and angels ; thus per-
mitting bad, as well as good, to have its way.
Then came in also the conception of a future life and
resurrection for ultimate judgment. These doctrines
have been supposed, with good reason, to have come to
the Jews, from the influence of the Great System of
Zoroaster.^
The Jewish prophets, however, carefully concealed, or
at least did not mention the fact that *^The word of the
Lord" came to them by way of Persia, for not until the
* Quoted from Rhode ; but the others are equally firm
in their statements. If I err I am in splendid company.
^ J. F. Clark's 10 great religions, vol. i, p. 205.
12 THE WORD OF THE LORD VIA PERSIA
exile in Babylon, where they came in contact with Per-
sian thought, do any of the Prophets mention that 'The
word of the Lord" came to them. The two religions,
after the captivity, travel oftentimes, nearly the same
road.
The Persians claimed to be a favored race ; and, to all
appearances, Ahura-Mazda (God)^ had approved them,
and exalted them, at that period, far above the Hebrews.
The latter were hewers of wood and drawers of water;
in fact slaves, in the worst sense, to their conquerors, the
Persians. The Jews also claimed to be a favored people,
and while it is true that they captured Ai, and leveled the
walls of Jericho,"^ and prevailed against the Midianites,
yet to-day they have no place on the map of the world.
Persia herself, afterward, came under the yoke, and yet
it would seem that she has always been more highly
favored than those Jewish wanderers.
§ 4. The Persians and the Jews, each undertook in
their Bibles, to give the cosmogony of the world. The
Avesta mentions sixteen good lands or countries which
Ahura-Mazda created ; and that Angra-Mainyu (the
Devil) thereupon counter-created the serpent and sin
^ This compound word was subsequently abridged to
Ormazd, sometimes Ahura or Mazda is used, meaning
God.
"^ I have never yet been able to bring myself to believe
that the tooting of a ram's horn caused the walls of Jeri-
cho to fall down flat (Joshua, ch. 6), nor do I believe,
as stated in the Avesta, that part of the waters of a river
were made to stand still, and part to flow forward so as
to leave a dry passage for Vistauru. See Aban Yast, § 76
to § 78. Both of these Bible stories are improbable.
PERSIAN AND JEWISH BIBLES 13
(Vend. ch. i), unbelief and tears and wailings, and sor-
cery and winter (Vend., ch. i.).
In the Jewish Bible when God creates the heavens and
the earth, the serpent is on hand, but there is no mention
of winter. ^ In the Avesta, the ancestry of the human race
are Mashya and Mashyoi, and they sprout up from earth,
as we shall hereafter see.^ The word Mashya means
"man." In Genesis we have Adam and Eve. The word
Adam means "man." The Avesta gives the Lord six
great periods in which to create the world ; Genesis hur-
ries him through in six days, but gives him a rest on the
seventh^. The compiler of Genesis says the Lord "sancti-
fied" the seventh day, but Babylon had sanctified it long
before that, and called it "Sulum," meaning "rest."^ In
fact, the Babylonians had "sanctified" it so thoroughly
that they would not even allow their King to take a drive
in his chariot, on their sanctified "Sulum." In both
Bibles, man is the last animal created. Neither Bible
was written by any one man ; nor was either produced in
any one age.^ In fact the Jewish Bible, if its chronology-
be correct (?) covers the long period of nearly seventeen
hundred years, and Moses is the chief figure in its early
pages. The chronology of the Avesta is still more defi-
cient; in truth it can only be tentatively fixed by outside
events. But it is certain that no one age or century saw-
its completion ; yet Zoroaster towers on every page. In
the Jewish Bible we have the old Hebrew tongue; later
the Aramaic. The modern Greek does not understand the
Greek of Demosthenes; nor is the language of Chaucer,
8 Ch. 2, Sec. I.
^ Br. Ency. Tit. Babylonia, Vol. 3, p. 191.
14 THE ARK
that of Tennyson. The older Avesta, is the language of
ancient Iran, — a language so far back that no certain
date can be fixed for it. The Pahlavi bears about the
same relation to it that Aramaic does to Hebrew.
§ 5. In both Bibles the human race (except a few) is
to be destroyed. A great cataclysm of waters is to over-
whelm and drown the world, according to Genesis. In
the Avesta mankind is to be exterminated by the deadly
frosts of winter. In the Jewish Bible we are told that it
"Grieved the Lord at his heart" and that he ''repented"
that He had made man,i<^ and would destroy him because
every imagination of his heart was only evil continually.
The Avesta tells us^^ that the earth had become so full
of flocks and herds, of men and dogs, and birds, that
there was no room for more and hence (except a few)
they must be destroyed.
The Lord directs Noah to build an Ark, the length to
be 300 cubits, and the breadth 50 cubits ; the height thereof
30 cubits.^ 2 Of clean beasts of the field and fowls, Noah
was directed to take into the Ark by sevens ; but of those
not clean, by twos — male and female. And Noah and his
family went into the Ark, and the beasts and fowls of the
air, and everything that creepeth on the earth. We are
10 Gen., ch. 6.
^1 According to ch. 2, Vendidad, Yima had made the
earth grow larger several times because it had become
too populous.
12 The Hebrew cubit was a little over 21 inches ; the
ark was, if we make generous allowance, about 450 feet
long, 75 feet wide, and 3 stories, with one window, with a
door for each story. The window was only one cubit,
or 21 y2 inches square.
AND THE ANIMALS 15
not told how the slow-footed sloth of South America got
there. But if the world was only created about 2000 years
before the flood, then the sloth must have started some
five or six hundred years before its creation, in order to
be on hand in time to be saved; for "all flesh died that
moved upon the earth; all in whose nostrils was the
breath of life";!^ gave only Noah, and those in the Ark
with him. The waters, we are told, prevailed upon the
earth one-hundred-and-fifty days. And as we are asked
to believe this fabulous story, let us examine it. In the
first place, the Ark^^ is too small to contain one-tenth
of the animals, and their food, for one-hundred-and-fifty
days. How many sheep and goats and oxen would the
carnivorous animals require for food in that time? The
hay and the grain, for the herbivorous animals, where
did Noah get it ? But suppose that trouble be tided over,
and the animals all came forth from the Ark, what then ?
Would not the lions and the tigers, the wolves and the
hyenas, the jaguars and the leopards, and the other car-
nivora instantly pounce upon the sheep and the goats, and
the cattle, and exterminate them? If they killed one of
either sex, it would be the same as if both were destroyed.
Even if the cattle and the sheep escaped the teeth of the
flesh-eaters, they would soon perish with hunger, for all
grass and herbage of every kind would be utterly de-
stroyed in one-hundred-and-fifty days. But if we believe
the record, it was not until the eighth month that even
the tops of the mountains could be seen, and it was nearly
^^ Gen., ch. 7.
^^ The word Ark properly translated means box. It
should be Noah's box.
16 YIMA, THE PERSIAN NOAH
a year before Noah and the animals went forth.^'^ Noah
himself, by reason of his long tossing on the deep, must
have become somewhat demoralized; for in celebrating
the fruitage of his vineyard, ''he drank of the wine and
was drunken ; and he was uncovered in his tent." Some
enquiring mind might ask if Noah possessed the ability
to construct a boat 450 feet long and 75 feet wide, and
three stories, why was it that he did not build a house
instead of living in a mere tent?
§ 6. In the Persian Bible, Yima, the son of Vivan-
ghat, "at a meeting of the best of Mortals", is told by
Ahura that a deadly frost and evil winters are about to
fall upon the world, and that deep snow will cover the
earth, even to the mountain tops. That he, Yima, must
make a vara (an underground abode) to shelter man and
animals, lest they all perish. As with Noah, the Lord
gives particular directions. The vara must be two
hathras^^ long on every side, and a great stream of water
must be made to flow through it, one hathra long, to
quench the thirst of man and beast. Thither Yima must
bring sheep and oxen, dogs and birds; and dwelling
places must be fixed for man, and food provided for all.
Before that awful winter, Yima is told that the earth shall
bear plenty of grass for cattle. He is not restricted, like
Noah, to one family; but is told to bring the greatest,
best, and finest specimens of men and women on earth :
and the finest cattle of every kind, and the choicest seeds
15 Gen. ch. 8.
1® A hathra is about i mile; the vara, therefore, would
be two miles square, more than one hundred times larger
than the Ark.
YIMA BUILDS A VARA 17
of every kind of fruit. From all these the earth is to be
replenished. But no hunchbacks, no impotent, or lunatic
or malicious one, or liar; no spiteful one, or leprous, or
jealous one, should he bring into the vara.^^ He was told
to make streets in this underground abode, and a door
and a window. (Noah had one window.) Yima could
not understand how a window would be of service in this
subterranean retreat, and is told that there are created
lights, and uncreated lights. That the only thing missed
there will be the sight of the sun, moon and stars. But
as a compensation for this, men will live such happy Hves
that a year will seem only as a day. Streets are to be con-
structed in this subterranean abode; and in one of the
longest of them a thousand men and women are to be
brought; in another, six hundred men and women; and
in another three hundred.^^ And that window, self-
shining within, will give them light sufficient to make it
seem an eternal day. Avarice will not be there; and
gluttony will be so far overcome that ten men can feed
upon one loaf and be filled. With all these instructions
Yima was at a loss to know with what material to con-
struct so vast a place; and was told to "crush the earth
with his heel, and knead it with his hands as a potter
kneads his clay."
The Avesta is silent as to the exact time of exit from
the vara ; but they dwelt there in blissful peace for years,
and until a bird was sent from heaven bearing the reli-
gion of Mazda to its occupants.^^
^'^ Vendidad, ch. 2.
^^ Fargard, 2 vend., § 30. See also § 32 id.
^^ We must not be shocked that they have birds in
18 NOAH'S DELUGE— A BABYLONIAN MYTH
§ 7. Concerning these two supposed destructions of
life, that of the Noachian deluge was, as it appears, com-
piled with almost literal exactness from two old Babylo-
nian records, and those records are made up from worn
out old legends.
The first is that of Berosus, and is as follows : ^^
Xisuthrus, the tenth King of Babylon, noted for his piety,
was warned in a dream,^'^ of a coming great deluge, to
prepare an Ark, thus to save his family and friends. The
Ark is prepared; they embark, and the deluge comes.
When the waters begin to subside, Xisuthrus, at three dif-
ferent times, sends out doves, the same as did Noah after-
wards. The Ark rested on a mountain, after which those
in the Ark disembark, and Xisuthrus builds an altar, and
offers sacrifice. Thereupon he and his companions all
mysteriously disappear. Perhaps they were translated
like Enoch.22 This flood story seems to have drifted
even to the Ganges. For Manu, who is called the Father
of Mankind, escapes from a deluge by building an Ark.
the Iranian heaven, for in the Jewish heaven they have
lions and horses and birds, and locusts — plenty of them.
See Revelation.
20 Berosus was a Chaldean priest and historian, living
in the time of Alexander the Great. It is known that he
had access to Babylonian records. Hence the value of
his works. Berosus hits Genesis a very hard blow when
he fixes the period before the flood, at 34,080 years.
21 This is the first recorded instance of any one, in
matters of importance, ''being warned in a dream." Vol.
7, Br. Ency., Deluge.
22 Gen., 5, 24. God took Enoch, but just how we are
not told.
A FISH STORY 19
He is warned of the coming flood, and the necessity of a
ship, by a fish. Manu heeds the warning, builds a boat,
and keeps this loquacious fish, which grows to an enor-
mous size. When the flood comes, Manu uses the fish to
tow his craft about; and the fish, being a skillful pilot,
lands the Ark on the top of a high mountain, where it
rests until the waters subside.
§ 8. In the next deluge story, Tamzi, the hero of the
epic, is warned to build a ship or Ark, and put his family
into it, and all animals; as all flesh is about to be de-
stroyed. He was told, as was Noah afterwards, to coat
the seams of his Ark with pitch, within and without.
The ship being ready, the windows of heaven are opened ;
the rain flood pours, drowning every living thing not in
Tamzi's Ark. The waters, after a time, subside, and the
Ark rests upon Nizir, a mountain.^^ Thereafter Tamzi
sent out a dove and a swallow, and they returned. Then
he sent out a raven, but the raven came not back. When
dry land appeared, Tamzi, on coming from the Ark, gave
a thank-offering. In this story, Hea, the God of Waters,
intercedes with Bel, the chief deity of the triad of Baby-
lon,25 that the world be not again drowned.
24 The mountain upon which Tamzi's Ark rested is
southwest of Lake Urumiah. Mt. Ararat is northwest of
that lake. These mountains are about 400 miles apart.
But there have been no floods there for the past 4000
years.
25 Gen., 8, 20. For the Babylonian deluges see George
Smith's Chaldean account of Genesis, also Br. Ency., Vol.
7, p. 54.
20 A FEW PARALLELS
Noah, on leaving the Ark, built an Altar and offered
some of the animals, which he had saved from the flood,
as burnt offerings to the Lord, and ''the Lord smelled
them'' and promised that "He would not any more curse
the ground."26 But even these myths of the Babylonians
were not original with them, for they copied an old, worn,
and faded Accadian legend, which was floating around the
world long before there was any Babylon at all. Whence
the Avesta fable, about Yima and his Vara, started, is
more difficult to trace. Possibly it is simply an exaggera-
tion of the Armenian plan of burrowing, during the win-
ter, in the earth. We know that, about four hundred
years B. C, when Xenophon and his Greeks passed
through Armenia, they found plenty of Varas, or under-
ground villages, filled with people who, there, in security,
defied the biting frosts of winter, and this practice is not
entirely abandoned to this day.
F § 9. Let us notice a few more parallels : Thraetona,
the descendant of Yima, divided the earth between his
three sons, Selma, Tura and Airia. He bestowed Turan
upon Tura ; to Selma he gave Rum (Europa) ; and Turan
fell to Airia. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and
Japhet; and "of them the whole earth was overspread."
As we shall hereafter see that Zoroaster talks with Ahura,
so also does Moses with the Almighty.
The Persian Bible tells us that Ahura revealed the law
to Zoroaster "on the Mount of the Holy Conversations."^^
The Jewish Bible sets forth that the Lord gave to Moses,
2« Gen., 7.
27 Ormazd Yast, Vol. 23, S. B. E. § 31 and note i.
MIRACULOUS BIRTHS OF ZOROASTER'S SONS 21
on Mount Sinai, the ten commandments .^^ The New
Testament, the latest part of the Jewish Bible, tells us
that God's only begotten son, Jesus, came to reclaim
the world and save man from his errors and his sins.
He is said to have been born of a Virgin. This part of our
Gospel was long preceded by the Avesta, which said that
three unborn sons of Zoroaster were to be born of Vir-
gins, at different periods, to renovate the world. They
were to bring immortal life to the race. Soshyans, the
latest born of these sons, is called the Beneficent One;
for it is said, he will benefit the whole bodily world. He
is also called Aastvat-Erata ; for he will cause the resur-
rection, — bodily resurrection, the same as the New Testa-
ment teaches.29 But the Avesta was not followed exactly,
in all things, by the New Testament, for the God of the
Avesta has a son Atar 2*^ and a daughter Ashi-Vanghui,
who is said to be tall formed, and of such intelligence that
she can bring heavenly wisdom at her wish.^^
As we shall see numerous other parallels further on, I
will only add that the Avesta, after the death of Zoroaster,
was taught everywhere in Iran, and, thereafter, was
written in gold letters on twelve thousand Ox-hides ; one
copy of which was deposited among the archives at Per-
sepolis. This copy was burned by Alexander the Great
when he overran Persia ; but it had been previously pub-
28 Exodus, ch. 20.
29 Famardan Yast, Vol. 23, S. B. E., Bund, ch. 22 ;
Dinkard, ch. 14.
30Zamyad Yt, §§46 to 50.
31 Ashi Yast, Vol. 23, S. B. E., §§ i, 2, and 3.
22 LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF ZOROASTER
lished in all the seven regions.^^ piato, an hundred years
before this, had studied and admired the simplicity of the
doctrines of the Great Persian, who taught, and Plato
believed, that good thoughts, good words and good deeds
were sufficient to insure a happy tranquillity in the eter-
nal beyond. Does Jesus' Gospel go beyond this ?
32 Dinkard 7, ch. 6, § 12. The Persians divided the
earth into seven Karshvares or zones.
PART FIRST
The Word of the Lord " Came to the
Hebrews by Way of Persia
' Life and Teachings
OF
ZOROASTER
CHAPTER I.
ZOROASTER, HIS NAME AND BIRTHPLACE.
Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed, each left
such an indehble impress upon the age in which he Uved
that millions since their day have taught, reverenced and
believed the doctrines which they proclaimed. The first,
and earliest of these names, Zoroaster, like a distant and
lofty mountain peak, partly obscured by clouds that hang
about it, is somewhat enveloped in tradition. Yet seeing
the top, we are certain the mountain has a base. And
finding numerous records, supplemented by traditions
almost without number, and, from various quarters, we
are sure that Zoroaster lived and was, and is, in truth, a
great historic reality.
There is no more doubt that he lived and wrought a
great work among the people of ancient Iran (Persia)
than that Moses, or Solomon, or George Washington
lived, and left great names ; which blaze and sparkle, upon
the historic page. In truth, the foot-prints of Zoroaster
are so trampled into and indented into old Persian legends,
and history, that we might as well undertake to gainsay
24 WAS HE NAMED FOR A STARf
the existence of any other monumental character, as to
controvert his Hfe, or his personality.
§ 2. Much curious speculation, and many wild guesses
have been made concerning the etymologies of this great
man's name. The Greeks called him Zoroastres. In the
Avesta, his full name is given as Spitama Zarathrustra.
In the Pahlavi, he is called Zartust, and Zardust. Some-
times he is designated as the Spitama; and again as the
Righteous. The appellative Spitama comes, probably,
from one of his ancestors, back several generations. His
name may be a compound, "Zoe" Hfe, and "aster" star.
The latter part of his name, "ustra" (camel), may give us
a hint.^ Some writers have endeavored to trace his line
back to royalty; but for our purpose, it makes no differ-
ence whether that ancestor plowed with camels, or wield-
ed a scepter, or was named for a star. Of this we are
certain, that no scholar, however learned and critical, can
with absolute certainty state either the derivation of his
name or its signification.
§ 3. A more important question presents itself just
here. Was Zoroaster born on the bank of distant Oxus,
in eastern Iran, or did he first see the light in Bactria, or
in Ragha, or was Ardibagan, which lies to the west of the
Caspian Sea, his native place? Rival cities. Cyme and
Smyrna, and others, claimed the honor of giving Homer
to the world. It is possible that they were all wrong.
Let an intellectual colossus appear in any age, and, if
^ Burnouf and Casartelli both have urged that his
name, or a part of it, was derived from the word *'ustra,"
meaning camel.
HIS BIRTHPLACE 25
there be a question as to his birthplace, some land, which
was the scene of his activity, will make haste to appropri-
ate him. It was thus in the case of Zoroaster. He did
not, as did Cyrus, marshal armies and establish a king-
dom. His place, for a time, was less conspicuous. He
became the prophet and founder of a religion, which
taught the hosts of light to wage unceasing warfare
against the powers of darkness. He taught that Ahura-
Mazda (Ormazd) was a mighty God, who created
heaven, earth and man. He gave a new religion to an-
cient Iran, to Media, and to surrounding tribes and
nations. Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds,
were the prime factors in his teachings. Can any religion
strike deeper at the root of evil than this? If the mind
be filled with good thoughts; if the tongue utters only
good words; if the hands perform only good deeds, can
the soul's aspirations mount higher? Did the gentle
teachings of the Man of Galilee reach beyond these three
cardinal points ? They surely did not, because they could
not. All beyond this is exegesis. Thus it appears that
Zoroaster, many centuries before Jesus was born, an-
nounced the very beginning, and end, of every religion.
It was philosophy, logic and religion, all compressed into
one short, pithy sentence. The most ignorant and the
most stupid could follow the reasoning to the end. The
very pillars of heaven can find nothing better, or beyond
this, to rest upon. Nations and distant peoples saw, un-
derstood, believed and appreciated these short, simple
truths. But we shall see how like another great teacher,
many centuries later, he perished in their advocacy. Jesus
sufifered on Calvary for teaching "peace on earth and
good will to all" mankind. In other words, for teaching
26 HIS DOCTRINE— GOOD THOUGHTS
men to hold good thoughts, and to utter good words, and
to do good deeds to every one. Zoroaster was slain, his
blood quenching the holy fires, as he worshipped at the
altar. We shall find him all along, to be a man of sub-
lime, undaunted courage, and of unsurpassed patience ; a
man of such strength of mind, and such firmness of pur-
pose, that mountains of obstacles could not move him.
No wonder, therefore, that different places should claim
the honor of his birth.
§ 2. The Bundahis^ calls the Daraga river, the chief
of exalted rivers, because the mansion of Porushaspa, the
father of Zoroaster, stood upon its high banks ; and it
says, Zoroaster was born there. The locality of this river
is fixed in Airan-Veg. But the Bundahis is, to say the
least, a very uncertain guide. It is a curious old book,
made up from some worn and tattered manuscripts, which
have suffered several recensions, additions, and revisions,
and took its present form about the ninth century A. D.
It is in fact a collection of fragments, purporting to give,
among other things, the history of creation ; the conflicts
of the good and evil spirits, and is much longer than
Genesis, and, if possible, is even more unsatisfactory. It
goes into elaborate details about things unknown, to man,
and forever unknowable. But in extremities we must not
Cavil too much with our guide.
2 Chapter 30 of the Bundahis is the end of the original
book. The four other chapters seem to have been added
at a much later date. Chapter 34, on "the reckoning of
the years," is perhaps the latest interpolation. The whole
four last chapters are probably apocryphal. The Bunda-
his has probably as many recensions as the Pentateuch.
THE CASPIAN AND OXUS 27
However, let us inquire somewhat as to the location
of this Arian-Veg. According to the Vendidad (ch. i)
it was the first of the good lands created by Ormazd
(God), through which flowed the river Vanguhi Daitya;
and this stream, the Bundahis insists, is in the direction
of Adarbaigan. In Sassanian times, Vauguhi was the
name of the Oxus. The Araxas was also called the same.
Now, if we assume that ancient Adarbaigan is that coun-
try between Lake Urumiah and the Caspian, there are
several rivers, in that confine, to be considered.
If it was the Arraxes (modern Aras), that large
stream whose waters flow down from the mountains of
Ararat, where Noah's Ark rested, after a very trouble-
some and destructive rainy season, then, indeed, Zoroaster
was bom in classical and historic fields, and well might
aspire to write a Bible and found a religion.^ But if we
place him there, must we not fix Vistaspa, Gamaspa and
others of his satellites there also? For those men con-
tinually, after he brought his religion to their notice and
acceptance, were simply satellites revolving around an
attractive center. In this uncertainty it may have been
the Keizel river, farther south, on the banks of which the
prophet of Iran first saw the light.^ Again, there was
3 The Bundahis says, in the direction of Ataro-patakan.
Persian, Adarbaigan. But where was the writer when he
said **in the direction of," etc.? He might have been in
Tehran or in Balkh. He does not say the river Daraza
is in Adarbaigan, nor are we told where Adarbaigan is.
^ I call him a prophet on the authority of Luke, ist,
who says, "there have been prophets since the world be-
gan."
28 MANY COUNTRIES CLAIM HIM
an insignificant stream called the Darej, whose source
was Mt. Savalan, about eighty miles south of the Arraxes,
which some writers have sought to make the "chief of
exalted rivers." Yet there is nothing whatever about
that little sprinkle of waters to make it famous, unless it
be the certainty that it is the Daraga, where Porusaspa
lived, and where his famous son was born.
§ 3. In those early days, we may ask, did Media in-
clude Adarbaigan ? If not, then we have another country,
at once claiming to have given the prophet of Eran to the
world. For the twelfth of the good lands created by
Ormazd, was Ragha (Greek Ragia), of the three races, or
classes, priests, warriors and husbandmen.
Many oriental scholars have placed this Ragha about
ninety miles south of the Caspian, near the present city
of Tehran, and, as a help to this argument, it is claimed
there were two Raghas, one in Adarbaigan, and another
in Media. That Zaratust's father was of Adarbaigan,
and his mother from Ragha, near Tehran.
But in ancient Persian, Raga means district or prov-
ince (dahya), and there would hardly be the confusion
of two Ragas, in the same province.
§ 4. Persons anxious to fix the Bethlehem of this
early religion think they have surely solved the problem
when they cite us to Yasna, 19, section 18; but if that be
the finger-board to point us the way, it is, to say the least,
a very obscure one.
It mentions four classes and five chiefs in the political
world ; the house, the village, the tribe, the province, and
the Zarathrustra chief, as the fifth. These five chiefs are
only necessary in provinces outside of the Zarathrustrian
IRANIANS AND HINDOOS SEPARATE 29
regency. Ragha had four chiefs only ; the house, the vil-
lage, the tribe, and Zarathrustra as the fourth. But
province chief, and the Zarathrustra, being united in one
person does not carry with it the proof, nor even a sug-
gestion, that the prophet was born there. That the Pope
resides at the Vatican is no proof that it is his birthplace.
No doubt Zarathrustra was the head of the order while
living; his exalted character being probably recognized
by uniting in him both the temporal and spiritual power
for a time at Ragha.
§ 5. Bactria now claims our attention. Here the
prophet's ministry became active and effective. And
here, unless many concurring traditions be wrong, he
suffered martyrdom. We have already seen that the
Oxus and Arraxes were both, in former times, called
Vanguhi ; but this is not surprising, for they are fourteen
hundred miles apart, and thirty-five hundred years ago
were in provinces held by different peoples. Bactria was
in eastern Iran, and is an historic spot; for historians,
ethnologists and philologists have agreed that here, or
not far from here, the division and separation of one
branch of the great Aryan race occurred. Here the Hin-
dus and the Iranians (later Persians), children of that
wonderful Aryan family, bade each other farewell.^ The
sAban Yast, §§ 3, 4 and 5. Farvarden Yast, § 8.
I am aware that there are those who claim that this
refers to the Araxas ; but the Araxas is a small stream
compared to the Oxus. The former is only 500 miles long,
and is shallow and fordable in the summer. The Oxus is
navigable more than 1,000 miles, and some of its affluents
are nearly as large as the Araxas.
30 THE PERSIANS ON THE OX US
Hindus to cross the mountains linger along the shaded
banks of the great Indus, where they develop their civili-
zation, and write the Veda ; the Persians to find a home,
for a time, on that other renowned stream, the Oxus,
until their swelling numbers reach out beyond the Caspian
and until they give law and religion to all the land from
the Tigris to the Oxus, and from the Caspian to the Per-
sian Gulf.^
The Oxus, in its long acquaintance, has borne various
names. In early Persian times it was called Veh-Rud.
The Mohammedans called it El-Nahr; later Jihun. At
present the Asiatics call it Amu-Daria. As the Jihun, it
was said to be the Gihon of Genesis, that figures in the
garden of Eden. In this region many changes in nations,
and great changes in nature, have occurred to make it
remarkable. For when the Avesta was composed, the
Oxus poured its volume into the Caspian. To-day it
empties into the Aral.
The Avesta says ''that large river, known afar, that is
as large as the whole w^aters that run along the earth;
that runs powerfully down to the sea — Voru-Kasha (the
Caspian). All the shores of the sea Voru-Kasha are boil-
ing over when she streams down there." From this river
flow all the waters that spread over the seven Karshvars.
§ 6. An observation might be made just here, that
the Hindu Bible has an antiquity of probably more than
four thousand years; and yet there are those who say
^ There is scarcely a dissenting voice on this point, at
this day ; their language, their race habits, and even their
skulls are similar. The names of their ancient Gods are
almost the same.
THE PARTING OF THE TRIBES 31
that Zoroaster's Bible, and his reHgion were not given to
Iran until about six hundred years B. C.
Were these children of the Indus favored like the
Jews? Were they the chosen people of the ''Great I
Am?" and were the Iranians the unfortunate Esau's of
the ancient Tribes ? We know that the Veda was not in
existence at the time of the separation; hence we know
that the parting of the tribes took place more than four
and possibly five or six thousand years ago. We also
know that the Vedic religion, and that of the Avesta
followed the old Aryan system of ancestral worship.
This they carried with them into their new homes; for
the Vedas teach the worship of the Pitris or fathers, and
oblations were offered to themJ The Iranians were also
zealous in their reverence of the Fravashis or spirits of
their progenitors.
After the separation, there must have been friendly
intercourse between these children of the same family;
for the Vendidad^ tells us that the fourth of the good
lands created^ was the beautiful Bakhdi (Greek Baktra),
with high lifted banners; and that the fifteenth of the
good countries was the land of the seven rivers (the
Indus and its affluents), the lands of the Hindus.
It is possible that it was a religious schism that caused
"^ The first Gathas, those composed by Zoroaster, make
no mention of ancestral worship. He was too intent on
the worship of Omazd.
^ Vendidad, ch. i.
^ The Vendidad fixes different periods of time for the
creation of the earth. It does not hold to the creation of
the world in six days.
32 QUARRELED ABOUT THEIR GODS
the separation, for we shall see, hereafter, how they
quarreled about their Gods and their religions. But it
was only in argumentation, as to whether the Veda or
the Avesta pointed the true way to the shadow-land.
Although the earlier Gathas are undoubtedly the pro-
duct of Zoroaster's heart and brain, yet they nowhere
fix his native home ; and with all the light at the present
day obtainable, it is impossible to determine that vexed
question to a certainty.
Speculation on this point might lead us through several
pages, but in the end we should only have a multitude
of conflicting opinions. Of one thing we are certain,
that the life-work of this great soul was of such magni-
tude and importance that his doctrines and his influence
have crossed oceans and continents and are yet an active
force in the world.
CHAPTER II.
WHEN DID ZOROASTER LIVE?
§ I. The most learned scholars, for the last twenty-
four hundred years, have disagreed about the period in
which Zoroaster lived. Some place him far back in an-
tiquity ; yet others assign him to a more recent date. One
of the latter. Dr. West, thinks he was born six hundred
and sixty years before Jesus. That argument, it would
seem, is not difficult to overthrow. Dr. West pins his
faith, in this matter, to the 34th chapter of the Bundahis,
which, as we have heretofore stated, is an old work com-
piled about one thousand years ago. To have a better
comprehension of that work, we may add that it treats of
the cosmogony, or beginning of the world, and its crea-
tures, as revealed by the religion of Ormazd (God).
^Good and evil spirits appear at once. Ormazd is su-
preme in goodness, and his region is endless light. He
ever was, and ever will be. Aharman, with desire for de-
struction, and not aware of the existence of Ormazd, was
in the abyss. Both of these spirits are limited and unlim-
ited ; but as to their own selves, they are limited. Ahar-
man, the evil spirit, who is elsewhere called Akemano, on
rising from the abyss, and seeing Ormazd, and the light,
rushed back to his gloomy abode, and there created de-
mons and fiends to assist him in the conflict which he saw
was at hand. Ormazd, who knew the end from the
beginning, thereupon first created Vohu-Mano, the
33
34 GOOD AND EVIL CREATED
archangel of good thought, afterwards he created others.
The evil one produced Mitoket (falsehood), then Ako-
man, the demon of evil thought, that great father of
wickedness, and after that created others ; then the dread-
ful strife began, which is to last until Aharman is over-
thrown; at which time the renovation of the universe
will take place. It is the old story of Genesis, much
amplified; good and evil in fierce, never-ending conflict.j
The original Bundahis, no doubt, ended with the thir-
tieth chapter, which gives an account of the resurrection.
The 34th 'chapter fixes the existence ^ of the world, from
its beginning to its end or decay, at twelve thousand
years; three thousand of which was the duration of the
spiritual, when creatures were unthinking, unmoving, in-
tangible. Three thousand years was the duration of
Gayomard and the Ox 2 in the world ; ^ when the evil
one rushed in and Gayomard (he was the first man),
after thirty years of tribulation, died. But in dying he
gave forth seed, which was kept in charge of two angels,
and placed in the earth, where, after forty years, Mashya
and Mashyoi grew up from the earth in the form of a
Rivas, w^hich is a vegetable, something like a rhubarb
plant.^ This was the first human pair, the Adam and
Eve of the race, if we follow the Bundahis ; and they
^ Dr. West, himself, admits that the 34th chapter of
Bundahis is a late addition, and of doubtful authority.
See Vol. 5, S. B. E. Introduction, p. 43.
2 This primal Ox is supposed to be the progenitor of
all animals, also certain grains. Chap. 4, Bund.
3 It is said that Gayomard was watching for the com-
ing of Zaratust. Bund., ch. 24.
^ Chapter 15, Bund., also Zad-Sparan, ch. 10 and ch.
34, Bund.
MAN AND WOMAN GREW FROM THE EARTH 35
grew up from the earth in such a manner that their arms
rested behind; and their waists were so close together
that it was impossible to distinguish the male from the
female. They were thus fifty years together, but were
not yet husband and wife ; but, finally, changed from the
shape of a plant, into the perfect human form, and
breath (nismo, which is the soul), came into them.
The ethnology of the Tibetans is about as sensible as
either Genesis or the Bundahis as to the origin of man.
The three accounts united, and leaving out certain parts
of each, and adding certain things from the others, may
come near the correct solution of that enigma: man's
creation.
The Tibetans claim (in the legend of Tanjur) to be the
descendants of an ape (sent to Tibet by the deity Chen-
resig) and a female demon. This ape and the demon
became the parents of six children, every one of whom,
as soon as weaned, were abandoned by their parents, .in
a great garden of fruit, there to survive or perish, as best
they might. But they lived, and their numbers multiplied
prodigiously, so that in a short time they increased to
five hundred. The fruits of the garden being all devoured,
they were on the point of starvation, when the Ape, their
ancestor, returned. Amazed at their number, and seeing
their sore distress, he besought Chenresig, for their relief.
That God listens to this entreaty, and promises to become
their guardian and protector. In fulfillment of his prom-
ise, he threw to them, in great abundance, from a lofty
mountain peak, five kinds of grain. Upon this grain the
monkeys fed and fattened; but the eating of it worked
marvels. Their tails began to grow shorter and shorter,
and their hair commenced to drop off. After a time their
36 MASHYA AND MASHYOI GREW TOGETHER
tails disappeared entirely, and their hair was gone. In-
stead of a wild gibberish, they began to talk, and were
transformed into men and women. They then clothed
themselves with leaves. Adam and Eve, we are told,
made themselves aprons of fig-leaves. The Lord after-
ward, according to the record, clothed Adam and his wife
with the skins of beasts. The poor Tibetans, however,
were not thus highly favored. The Lord did not become
their clothier, nor did Chenresig assist them any further,
but left them to earn their bread in the sweat of their
faces.
§ 2. Those persons who wrote the Bundahis over-
looked the 19th chapter of the Vendidad, which says the
Good Spirit "made the creation in the boundless time.''
Thus, time is not limited to the little span of twelve thou-
sand years. But not to be outdone by Genesis, the Bunda-
his writers set it down that Ormazd (the Lord) appears
on the scene and makes a speech to Mashya and Mashyoi.
In Genesis, the Lord punishes Adam and Eve for eating
of the tree of knowledge, and curses the ground, and
drives them out of Eden, because they disobey Him ; and,
lest they get back again, he puts cherubims, with flaming
swords, to keep them out. But Mashya and Mashyoi are
not met with reproaches, and curses, and punishments.
The Lord, in his speech to them, says: "You are the
ancestry of the world; and you are created in perfect
devotion, by me; perform, then, devotedly, the duty of
the law; think good thoughts; speak good words; do
good deeds, but worship no demons. (Bund., ch. 15.).'
There is another clash at this point, between these
authorities, which must be noticed. Genesis tells us that
the world was created in six days, and that Adam was the
ADAM CAME ALONE 37
product of the last day. Eve was, as yet, unthought of;
for the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and
then took out one of his ribs and constructed Eve. This
must have been a long time subsequent to Adam, for, be-
fore she came, he had given names to "all the cattle of the
fields and all the fowls of the air, and every living thing" ;
and as there were many tens of thousands of "living
things", it must have taken him years to accomplish this
task. During all which time "there was no help-meet
for Adam" (Gen. 2). The Bundahis makes the time six
thousand and thirty years from the creation to Gay-
omard's death. His seed, whatever it was, remained in
the ground forty years ; then it was fifty years before
Mashya and Mashyoi were changed into the full human
form. It was, therefore, six thousand one hundred and
twenty years when breath came to this Iranian Adam and
Eve. (Ch. 15, Bund.)
But it would seem that even one hundred and twenty
years is a short time for Gayomard's seed to progress
and develop from a protoplasm into a protozoan, and
thence ascend to the radiates, thence on to the mollusks,
and still higher to the articulates, thence up to the verte-
brates and the full stature of man.
Nature is slow and toilsome in her methods; is never
hurried for time; and had those writers said ten thou-
sand years instead of one hundred and twenty years, or
what is better still, forty thousand years, and many thou-
sands beyond that, they probably would have been more
nearly exact. Dr. James Croll, in his great work on
"climate and time", puts the age of the earth at sixty
millions of years, and thinks it is probably much older.
Lord Kevlin has furnished abundant proof that the earth
38 THIS OLD EARTH
has been a solidified body for at least thirty millions of
years. Yet these unscientific Parsee dreamers, and blun-
derers, and those old and unknown compilers of some
ancient and worn out legends concerning Adam and the
creation, ignorant about the very subject upon which
they are treating, write down our globe ^ as a youngster
of only a few thousand years. But it may be said that
chapter 34, Bundahis, only fixes the chronology of the
race after Mashya and Mashyoi make their appearance.
Suppose that be so ; how did those writers learn that dur-
ing the first three thousand years creatures were unthink-
ing, unmoving and intangible ? How did they know that
Gayomard and the Ox held sway for only three thousand
years ? How did they know that Gayomard died in tribu-
lation, thirty years after the adversary rushed in? For
he died while Mashya and Mashyoi were yet in the
ground sprouting up, like rhubarb plants. Gayomard,
therefore, could not give this Adam and Eve of the Ira-
nians the word and let them pass it on down to the Bunda-
his writers. We have no proof that the Ox told them,
though we might as readily believe that the Ox did tell
them as to believe that the Ass talked to Balaam. But, if
that Ox was not gifted with speech, how then did they
learn of this wonderful chronology?^ Did they write
it from old and worn out traditions, the same as Ezra and
^ The Jews make our world less than 6,000 years ; and
the Parsees make it less than 10,000 years old.
^ In the Iranian Bible the Primeval Bull is even more
loquacious than Balaam's Ass in the Jewish Bible. For
the Ass, see Numbers 22, for the Bull see ch. 4, Bund.,
p. 20.
WRITERS OF BIBLES 39
Nehemiah wrote the Pentateuch? How did the writers
of those Bibles learn of the marvelous matters which
they set forth? The answer in each case is the same.
They say they were inspired and the things they write
about are revelations from on High.
§ 3. Instead of trusting to traditions, myths and un-
certainties, let us now take a date that is fixed and un-
impeachable. In the year 585 B. C, the Modes under
Cyaxares were waging war against the Lydians.
It had progressed, as most wars do, with varying for-
tunes, for five years. But on the 28th day of May, in
that year, while a great battle was in progress, the sun
suddenly suffered a total eclipse. The darkness of night
coming on at mid-day, the terrified combatants saw, or
thought they saw, an omen of divine displeasure. In-
stantly the battle ceased, and both sides became anxious
for peace, and peace was at once concluded. They were
not aware that Thales, a Milesian astronomer had calcu-
lated this eclipse and had foretold the same to the day
and hour.''' Here is something that can be disproved or
verified; for God's laws are uniform and certain. They
are without variableness or shadow of turning. It is a
wonderful science that can reach out into the future and
tell the exact position of the earth or sun, or his satel-
lites, at a certain hour of a certain day. Yet the masters
of astronomy have accomplished this for thousands of
years past, and are doing the same to-day. And on this
28th day of May, 585 years B. C, astronomers, who have
traced backward the path of the King of Day, find that
■^ Herodotus i ; 103. Br. Ency., Vol. 18, p. 563; Title
Persia.
40 ZOROASTER'S FIRST CONVERT
in Asia Minor, where this battle was being fought, there
was a total eclipse of the sun. Here, then, is a reckoning
that is indisputable. Now, if Zoroaster was born only
660 years before Christ, he was exactly seventy-five years
old at the date of the eclipse.
At the age of twenty, we are told by Zad-Sparam, that
Zoroaster, abandoning all worldly desires, and laying
hold on righteousness, went forth on his mission and
commenced his labors by assisting the poor; and it was
ten years before he secured a single convert. This was
Medyomah, his cousin. This leaves him exactly forty-five
years in which to convert the whole Median nation before
this battle with the Lydians. The Medes, we know, pro-
fessed the Zoroastrian religion. But the time here is too
short. Did anything approaching it ever before or since
happen on this earth ? The Jews from the time of Moses
down to Jesus, a period of fifteen hundred years, labored
to convert surrounding nations, but did not succeed in a
single instance; and they were, so they said, especially
favored by the Most High.
Who, then, were these Medes, that they so speedily, as
is claimed, adopted the faith of Iran ? They were then a
great people ; they were no longer a mere tribe. Genera-
tions before this six tribes became merged into one, and
they called themselves Medes. Their religion, for genera-
tions before this battle, was Zoroastrian. Even before
Zoroaster's day they sacrificed to the earth, to fire, to
water, to the winds, the sun and the clouds, after the
manner of the Iranians. The latter did not erect temples
or altars ; they worshipped in the open air ; on high hills
or mountains; and the Medes practiced the same rites.
In fact, the Medes and the Persians were both children
MEDES AND PERSIANS 41
of the same Aryan family. The Medes were formerly
called Aryans. The Persians wore the Median uniform
in war. The Medes never buried a dead body until it had
been torn by a dog or a bird ; the Persians did the same.^
Now how could Zoroaster teach those two nations all
this in forty-five years? The Medes and Persians of that
period occupied a strip of territory, reaching westward
from the Oxus, more than twelve hundred miles. We
have seen that the prophet was ten years in securing one
convert. How long was it before he captured two na-
tions ?
We shall see further along that surrounding nations
made war on him and his people because of his new reli-
gion. We shall see his armies defeated and driven from
the field ; and only at the last rally were they successful,
but at that moment the prophet himself was slain.
It was three hundred years after Jesus' day before Con-
stantine could make the religion of Jesus the national re-
ligion. And even then there were chisms and conflicting
creeds, and bloodshed, and persecutions, before the tumult
ended. And to this day religious factions glare at each
other fiercely. A new religion among a barbarous people,
or any other people, is a plant of slow growth. It would
seem, therefore, that we must search for the epoch of
Zoroaster more than six hundred and sixty years before
the Christian era. Besides this, the Avesta nowhere
speaks of the Persian nation; and the reason is, that it
was composed before there was any Persian nation in
existence. There were only Tribes in that day ; and Yasna,
^ Herodotus i, 140. Ibid. 7, 62.
42 B EROS US AND BABYLON
33, section 5, speaks of ''our tribes". According to Gos-
Yast, it was the gallant Husravah who united the Aryan
tribes into a kingdom.
§ 4. Now, let us see what Berosus, a Chaldean priest,
born in Babylonia about three hundred and sixty years
B. C, has to say about this matter. He translated into
Greek a history of Babylon, and there are very many
things in the Jewish Bible so strikingly similar to Berosus'
work that suspicion is aroused that the Jewish writers
drew their inspiration largely from Berosus.
True, his system of chronology will startle staid and
devout believers in the theory that our earth was created
only six thousand years ago ; for Berosus makes the rec-
ord of the race four hundred and thirty-two thousand
years old down to the flood, and over thirty-four thou-
sand years since the flood. In connection with his his-
tory he mentions the name of Zoroaster as living a period
twenty-four hundred years before Jesus' time. Berosus
was not a prophet, predicting the birth of this great teach-
er at some future day. He was simply a chronicler of
facts and events, as he found them stamped in clay or
burnt upon bricks. It happened that Babylonia was over-
run and conquered at that distant period, and Zoroaster's
name is mentioned in connection with that event. He
must, therefore, have lived before the historian could
write of him.
A still more distant period is set for the prophet by
Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great, and one of
the greatest scholars and philosophers that the world has
ever known, whose masterly mind ought to entitle his
utterances to serious consideration. Aristotle is sure that
ZOROASTER 6,000 YEARS AGO 43
Zoroaster lived six thousand years before Xerxes. This
carries him back into remote antiquity; back over eight
thousand years; back three thousand years before Gene-
sis. It is a strong utterance, not carelessly made, but
when we consider that this earth is millions, and millions
of years old, and that the Aryans were in Asia, probably
ten thousand years ago, and more likely before that
period, Aristotle's date for Zoroaster may not seem so
utterly extravagant. Bunson thinks the date set by Aris-
totle is not far out of the way; but adds that whether
the date be set too high cannot at present be answered.
Plato, twenty-three hundred years ago, mentions Zoro-
aster's religion as being established among the Medes in
western Iran, but does not fix a date for its appearance.
He intended visiting the Medes and Persians to investi-
gate their religious doctrines, but their wars with the
Greeks prevented.
§ 5. All the early Greek writers, those living 2000 to
2500 years ago, agree in placing the date of Zoroaster
about six thousand years before the Christian Era. It
is those only, of a more recent period, who claim that the
Iranian prophet came upon the stage only about twenty-
five hundred years ago. It must be noticed that these
late writers seem chained to the theory that the earth is a
recent production, and that man is a late arrival. They
seem to stand in awe of fixing a distant date for the
prophet, lest they collide with Genesis. In some things
Genesis may be right; but its chronology is misleading.
Pliny the Elder (born 23, A. D.), not being thus ham-
pered, speaks of Zoroaster as living and teaching centu-
ries before Moses. In fact, Pliny speaks of two Zoroas-
ters; the first of whom flourished long before Genesis;
44 ZOROASTER CENTURIES BEFORE MOSES
the latter about the time of Darius Hystaspes. Hermip-
pus, who Hved 250 years before Jesus, assigns the Great
Persian to a time centuries before the siege of Troy.
Plutarch holds to the same opinion.
Xanthus of Lydia (B. C. 500) thought the great
teacher lived six thousand years before Xerxes. Edward
Clodd, in his childhood of religions, says, we are sure
that Zoroaster lived more than three thousand years ago,
because his religion was established before the conquest of
Bactria by the Assyrians, which took place twelve hun-
dred years before Jesus' day. Justin makes the direct
assertion that the prophet was a Bactrian priest, and
ruler of the Bactrians. Now, if he is right, then the
Persian antedates, by centuries, both David and Solomon.
It must be admitted that at a very early period Zoroas-
ter's name had traveled far; for in old Irish history
there is mention of him and of a star, and a strange light
at his birth.»
Ctesias, who lived 400 years B. C, states that Ninus,
with a vast Assyrian army, made war on the Bactrians;
took their Capitol, and that Zoroaster was there slain.
Ctesias, though not always reliable, fixes this event about
nine hundred years before Jesus.
Ancient writers vary considerably as to the period of
the prophet, but they agree in placing him anterior to the
Jewish exile a century before the founding of Rome.
In any event it cannot be considered "extravagant", as
Dr. West claims, if we place him back to the time, or
even beyond the time, of Moses. For we cannot overlook
® See Valiancy's vindication of ancient history of Ire-
land: Vol. 4, p. 202.
BABYLON AND UR 45
the fact that in recent researches among the rocks and
ruins of the ancient city of Nippur, there have been found
stamped records upon burnt clay, which carry the writ-
ten history of man back beyond Genesis more than three
thousand years.
Old Babylon and Ur, of the Chaldees, are also yielding
up their secrets and telling us of their Gods, their Kings,
and their religions. That part of the world was teeming
with populations more than eight thousand years ago,
and probably more than ten thousand years ago ; and is it
unreasonable to suppose that the Great I Am, would, and
did, inspire some devout souls on the banks of the Oxus,
as well as on the Tigris, and the Euphrates, to teach the
Parsees and their progenitors the way to a better life?
The great and renowned leader of that religious throng
was Zoroaster; but for himself he took no "thought of
the morrow" ; and so left the world in an eternal contro-
versy, as to the period in which he lived. And to this
day no human being can state the exact time of his
sojourn on earth, although it is highly probable that he
lived before Solomon, and probably before Moses.
CHAPTER III.
Zoroaster's early years.
It is certain that Zoroaster's life was one long contin-
ued struggle to build up all that was good; in other
words, to teach his people to hold good thoughts, and
utter good words, and do good deeds to all mankind. But
it is probably a fiction and a myth, as stated in the Vendi-
dad, that Angra Manyu (the Devil), knowing of his
birth, summoned the fiends to assemble at the head of
Arezura — the ridge at the Gate of Hell, because, as he
said, the Holy Zaratust was just born in the house of
Porushaspa. ^
Nor shall I write down, as a sober truth, that in his
birth and growth, the waters and the plants rejoiced and
grew, and that all the creatures of the Good Creation
cried out "Hail". "Hail to us ; for he is born the Athra-
ven (priest) Spitama Zarathrustra. He will offer us
sacrifices, with libations, and bundles of baresma ; and
there will be the good law of the worshippers of Mazda.
It will come and spread through all the seven zones of
the earth.2 Mithra, the Lord of Wide Pastures, will
increase all the excellencies of our countries and allay
all our troubles."
1 Vend., ch. 20, § 46. We have elsewhere said that
Porushaspa was the prophet's father.
2 Farvarden Yast, S. B. E., Vol. 23, §§ 93, 94.
46
ZOROASTER'S MOTHER 47
That other wild statement, that the soul of the Primal
Bull, thousands of years before Zoroaster's appearance,
obtained a vision of him, is strangely fabulous. So, also,
we must class that later statement, that another gifted
Ox foretold the coming of the prophet.
The safer road to follow is the old beaten path; that
this man was born the same as other mortals ; though it
would not be extraordinary if he inherited a predilection
for his future mission. For the tradition is that Dugda-
hova, his mother, was so filled with that divine nimbus,
effulgence, or glory, that her father, thinking her be-
witched, sent her away from home ; sent her to the village
of Porushaspa. On her journey thither, as she stands
upon a lofty eminence, surveying with wonder, the beau-
ties of the landscape that stretched out before her, Revela-
tion mentions that she heard voices bidding her go for-
ward. She listened further, and, the voices giving assur-
ance that the village whither she was tending would be
compassionate, she proceeded ; and there she met Poru-
shaspa, whom she subsequently married. And this di-
vine radiance, or glory, passed on down to Zoroaster, her
son.^
Another story current among the Iranians at this time
is that the production of Zaratust was caused by his
parents drinking Hom juice, infused with cow's milk ; the
Hom, being a plant or shrub, that grew in the mountains
of Persia, and when pounded and the juice squeezed out
and mixed with milk it became pleasant to the taste. It
was used as a libation in ceremonial worship; and the
3 Dinkard 7, S. B E, ch 2 ; 7 to 9
48 DIVINE RADIANCE AT HIS BIRTH
Jews,^ as told in the book of Numbers, probably copied
as to their drink offering from the Iranian Hom juice
worship. But besides pouring ''strong wine to the Lord" ;
the Jews went beyond this, and poured drink-offerings
unto other Gods.
§ 2. It has been, and will be further noticed, that
there are many parallels and striking resemblances be-
tween what is said of Zoroaster and his religion, and later
moral heroes, and their religions. I shall give dates and
other matters, as far as attainable, that the reader may
judge if one has been, or is, copied from the other.
We may now notice the following: The New Testa-
ment distinctly sets forth that a star came and stood over
the place where Jesus was bom; and that Herod sought
to destroy him. But many centuries before Jesus came
more marvelous things were written and told in the Per-
sian Bible about Zoroaster. For three days before he
was born the whole village where his father lived became
luminous. A divine radiance or light encircled his fath-
er's house : and the child laughed outright as he came into
the world. Those present, who saw and heard these
strange occurrences, wondered much, and some were
frightened. Thereupon Porushaspa, the father, visited
Durasrobo, an idolatrous priest, hard by, renowned for
his sorcery and witchcraft, and the child was pronounced
foolish. This fatal piece of information so wrought
upon the mind of the father that he gave his consent
that the Karap ^ might at once make way with the babe.
^ See Numbers, ch. 28, V. 7. Jeremiah 19, v. 13.
^ S. B. E., Vol. 47, ch. 3. Those wizards were called
Karaps.
ATTEMPT TO MURDER HIM 49
r
Thereat, the wizard sought to compress and twist the
head of the child to cause his death. Instantly an invisi-
ble power stayed his hand — withered it; and it fell
harmless at his side. The Karap, in pain and alarm at
this unknown power, seized the infant and threw him in
front of a herd of cattle that he might be trampled to
death. But an old Ox, at the head of the column, stood
guard over the child while the drove, on either side,
passed him by. A similar attempt was made by throwing
the child in front of a herd of horses, and the leader
stood guard, the same as the Ox. The wizard then un-
dertook to burn the babe, and heaped a great pile of
wood ; and put the infant thereon ; but the fire would not
bum; thus was the child thrice saved. This story is
many centuries older than that of Herod and Jesus — was
this later story a copy?
ZOROASTER AND THE WOLF.
§ 3. If the reader can believe that Daniel was thrown
into a den of hungry lions, and there remained over
night, and came out unharmed, it will not be very trying
for him to credit the story of Zoroaster and the wolf.
The Persian legend surely surpasses, if possible, the
Jewish one; both being very improbable. The strange
happenings, above mentioned, have so shattered Poru-
Kavis and Karaps. Of course every one is familiar with
the story that Herod sought to kill Jesus. But outside
of the New Testament there is no mention of Herod's
order to slay the innocents ; nor does history, other than
the Persian Bible or its commentaries, make mention of
this attempt to kill Zoroaster.
50 FLUNG INTO A WOLFY DEN
shaspa's mind that he consents that his son may be
thrown into a wolf's den, her cubs being first killed to
make her more furious. But two angels are on guard,
Vohuman, the angel of good thought; and Srosh, the
angel of obedience; and they close the Wolf's mouth.^
In the case of Daniel it took only one angel to close
the mouths of a den of lions. But Vohuman and Srosh
did not cease their ministrations with the closing of the
wolf's mouth ; the babe was hungry ; and during the night
they brought a sheep, her udder being full of milk, into
the den, and it gave suck to the famished child. At dawn
the mother of the babe ran into the lair, expecting to find
only the bones of her child, but found him safe, and up-
braided her husband bitterly, that the wolf was kinder
to her child than its father.
Here we may consider that if God saved Daniel from
the lions, and if he knows all things, he knew that the
Persian child was born to preach a better religion than
the Karaps and the Wizards were doing. The Persians
being older and a more numerous people than the Jews,
why should they not have a teacher to direct them in
the right paths ? The Lord, it would seem, was mindful
of them, surely.
Zoroaster lived long centuries before Daniel, and if
either story is suggested or copied from the other, with
the variations above mentioned, that of the lions is surely
subsequent to that of the wolf."^
Another parallel will be here noticed. Jesus at twelve
is found in the Temple, in the midst of the wise men
^ Dinkard 7, ch. 3, § 16, and Dink., p. 146.
7 Dinkard, Book 7, ch. 3, § 46.
REVERENCES THE POOR 51
hearing and asking questions.^ Zoroaster at seven years
is engaged in a religious discussion with the Karaps and
declares that he reverences the poor, and the righteous,
but not the wicked. If we may trust the Dinkard, he
early began to manifest wonderful intellectual powers,
and an exalted mind filled with a desire for righteous-
ness.
The same authority speaks of the beauty of his person,
and the grandeur of his character, which fitted him for
the priesthood, or warriorship, and that he was an enemy
to everything vile. Such gifts of heaven, in any age,
stamp their possessor as a born leader of men. If the
warrior spirit predominates, he marshals armies and sub-
dues empires. If devoutly inclined, he remodels and
reforms old religions or establishes a new one.
§ 4. Whether it be true, as stated in the Zartust-Nama,
that Porushaspa placed the future prophet at the age
of seven in charge of a noted teacher for instruction, we
have no certain means of knowing. Educational matters,
at that early period, were highly primitive, and rudimen-
tary; and what he was taught, we can only conjecture.
If he lived only thirty-five hundred years ago it is prob-
able that the learning of Egypt, prior to his coming, had
penetrated to the Oxus, and beyond. As far back as five
thousand years ago the civilization of Egypt was won-
derful. In truth, Egypt was the land of learning, and
her people, as Herodotus mentions, ''were excessively
attentive to the Gods." The Greeks borrowed nearly all
the names of their Gods from the Egyptians. Rome did
8 Luke 2, vs. 42 to 49.
52 THE SACRED SHIRT
the same. The Egyptians assigned a particular God to
preside over each of the thirty days of the month; the
Iranians, at least in the later Avesta, followed, with
especial care, this example.
It is possible, nay, it is probable, that Zoroaster's in-
structor may have been a learned Egyptian scholar; for
he could not be very learned, unless he knew much of
that extraordinary people. But that matter will be con-
sidered further along; it being only necessary to here
add that Zoroaster, after the age of seven, like other
Parsee children, was allowed to wear the sacred shirt.
This was a loose tunic, of white, with short sleeves ; the
body of it reaching below the waist. Jews, Greeks and
Romans, afterward adopted this form of dress, except
that they made them much longer. The Dinkard calls it
"the Star spangled garment." At the age of fifteen,
young persons tied it on with the sacred girdle, in token
that sin was ended.^
Whether the putting on of the sacred shirt was in
vogue before Zaratust's time, is not so clear; but we are
sure that the religious formula of the girdle (Kusti) was
known and practiced long before the separation of the
Hindu Aryans, from the Aryans of Iran.^^ The Hindus
called it the sacred cord; the Iranians the sacred-thread
girdle. The former wore it over the left shoulder and
^ Dinkard, Vol. 37, S. B. E., p. 474; also Dadistan, ch.
38, § 22. Isaiah, ch. 59, v. 17. Put on a garment of
vengeance.
^^ That separation took place more than 4,300 years
ago.
THE SACRED GIRDLE 53
tinder the right arm; the Iranians passed it three times
around the waist.
After Zartust brought the good reHgion the girdle was
put on with a solemn religious ceremony, and was worn
as a sign of worship. The man or woman about to as-
sume the girdle, recites a prayer : **May Ahura Mazda be
Lord, and Aharam (the Devil) be unprevailing, smitten
and defeated. May the demons, fiends, wizards, Kavis and
Karpans, tyrants, sinners, apostates, and enemies, be
smitten and defeated. May enemies be confounded. Or-
mazd is the Lord. I renounce all sin, all evil thoughts,
evil words, evil deeds. For sins of thought, word and
deed, do thou pardon. I am penitent. I have scorn for
Aharman. Righteousness is the best good, a blessing it
is. Perfect rectitude is a blessing. Come to my protection,
O! Ormazd! A Mazda worshipper am L I praise the
Mazda religion, the best and most excellent of things. I
profess (Ashem-vohu) holiness is the best of all good." ^^
^1 The prayer is quite long and I have abridged it
somewhat, but have omitted only repetitions. See p. 383,
Dadistin. The girdle consisted of six strands; each
strand having twelve fine white woolen.
CHAPTER IV.
ZOROASTER FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY YEARS.
§ I. When Zoroaster had attained the age of fifteen
his brothers ^ demanded of Porushaspa, their father, their
portions. And among the goods there was a girdle, and
instead of wealth the future prophet wound the sacred
girdle about himself, in token of his devotion to the Lord.
If the other brothers demanded a girdle there is no record
of it, and even if they sought one the luster and halo
that surrounds the great name of their illustrious brother
so overshadows them that they are left in dark obscurity.
Such things as risking himself to assist some aged
people across a swollen and treacherous river, and in
feeding the famine-stricken beasts of burden from his
father's crib, are blazoned forth as indicating a heart
touched with sympathetic emotions. Those unknown
brothers may have joined him in those generous acts, but
history and tradition pass them by without mention.
We next catch a glimpse of him when, at the age of
twenty, abandoning worldly desires, and seeking only
righteousness, he leaves home without the consent of his
parents, and goes forth filled with compassion to assist
1 We are told that he had two brothers older than him-
self, and two younger. These were not children of
Dugdhova. Polygamy, then, was common ; and Poru-
shaspa must have had at least three wives, one of whom
preceded the mother of the prophet.
54
PERSIANS TRUTHFUL 55
the poor. That which is most favorable to the soul, he
says, is to nourish the poor, give fodder to hungry cattle,
keep the holy fires burning, and to reclaim the wicked.^
There is one matter which concerns the whole Iranian
people, that ought to be here mentioned. Their love of
truth-speaking was cultivated to such an extent as to
cause Herodotus, who wrote four hundred and forty
years B. C. to make special mention of it.^
He says that to tell a lie is ''considered by them as the
greatest disgrace. Beginning at the age of five, they in-
struct their sons in three things only: to ride, to use the
bow, and to speak the truth." The teaching of this
ancient people, in the matter of truth-speaking, no doubt
proceeded from the prophet; for we shall further along
see that he fought the lie-demon, during all his mature
life.
§ 2. There is a tradition that has floated along for a
thousand years, that the prophet lived in a desert or wil-
derness, twenty years, on cheese. This is so highly ques-
tionable that we dismiss it, by asking where he obtained
this peculiar diet? Or was the cheese brought to him
that he might eat it there? He may have fasted some-
what ; Jesus fasted ; John the Baptist lived in the wilder-
ness on locusts and wild-honey; Buddah fasted until he
nearly perished. The Jews, later on, and yet, have their
periods of fasting; and it is not improbable that Zoroas-
ter fasted for a time. But the statement that his diet, for
twenty years, consisted solely of cheese is absurd; and
2 Zad-Sparam, Vol. 47, S. B. E., ch. 20, § 7 to § 16.
3 Herodotus-Clio, i, 138. He was bom 484 years B. C.
56 HOLY MOUNTAINS
only crept into history through one of the fables of the
Zartust-Namah.4
Another tradition is that in the beginning of his
career he lived in solitude, in a cave, on the top of a high
mountain, the Persian Sinai. This was the "mount of the
Holy Questionings'' ; where he held communion, it is said,
with the Most High. The mountain quaked and flamed
and burned up, but the prophet escaped without harm.
Is chapter 19, Exodus, copied from this ; or is this a weak
imitation of Moses at Sinai?
The Lord, we are told, descended upon Sinai in fire,
and "the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a fur-
nace, and the whole mount did quake greatly. And the
Lord came down upon Mt. Sinai." Now, the Parsees
believed, and the remnant of them yet stoutly insist, that
the Lord talked with Zoroaster "on the Mountain of the
Holy Questionings." They persistently believe that the
Lord, there, taught their prophet the good religion, and
that he was the Divine Instrument to teach it to the peo-
ple. They insist that the Avesta — their Bible — is the
inspired word of God.^
The compilers of Exodus may have read the Avesta;
and, on the other hand, the Iranian sage may have known
of the teachings of Moses. This much, however, is cer-
tain ; they both taught that there was one God, the Crea-
tor and Ruler of the Universe. But which of those
4 Zartust-Namah is a fabulous life of the prophet, writ-
ten in the thirteenth century A. D. It is a grain of wheat
to a bushel of chaff.
^ The Christian Church will not admit this ; nay, it
dare not, lest it go to pieces.
WORSHIPPED ON MOUNTAINS 57
great souls, Moses or Zoroaster, antedates the other, who
can tell? We are, however, certain of this: that high
mountains, the wilderness, deserts and caves, have, in the
history of the race, played conspicuous parts. At the
period when the earth was supposed to be flat, a high
mountain was thought to be nearer heaven, and the Gods
did not have so far to travel, and could make the journey
to the earth more easily.
§ 3. The Iranians canonized their holy mountain in
a hymn of praise. They say ''We w^orship the mountain
that gives us understanding of the law. We worship it
with offerings and libations by day and by night." "We
worship all the Holy creations of Ahura." ''We worship
Ahura, who smites the fierce Angra Mainyu." "We wor-
ship Thee, Omarzda, who will give life in the blissful
abode of the Holy Ones." "We come to Thee for help,
O, Lord, Ashem-Vohu, Holiness is the best of all good." ^
There has been much discussion as to which of these
mountains shall have precedence, as to those marvelous
sayings about them. The reasoning is as follows :
The separation of the Hindu Aryans, from those of
Iran, took place forty-three hundred years ago, and pos-
sibly before that date. Now, if the Iranian mountain
episode or tradition had been prevalent before the separa-
tion some mention of it would probably be found in the
Rigveda. But concerning this matter, it is absolutely
silent. Therefore, the Zoroastrian Sinai (the Mountain
^ Ormazd-Yast, § 31, etc., S. B. E., Vol. 23. The name
of this mountain is Osdastar, and it is in Seistan. It is
the Sinai of the Iranians. Ahura there revealed the Law
to Zoroaster.
58 IRANIANS OLDER THAN THE HEBREWS
of the Holy Questionings), and all that is said to have
happened there, is perhaps later than four thousand three
hundred years ago. But the separation above mentioned
was at least eight hundred years before Moses led those
Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. The Iranians are, there-
fore, an older people than the Hebrews. They were in
Bactria, and along the Oxus, at least eight hundred years
before the Hebrews fed upon manna in the Wilderness.
§ 4. The period of Moses, at the time of the happen-
ings at Sinai (if such things really did happen), and if
the Chronology of the Jewish Bible is correct, was about
fifteen hundred years B. C. Was Zoroaster in existence
at that time? Did he live before that date, or subse-
quently? These questions cannot be safely and surely
answered, either in the affirmative or the negative. Of
course, those writers who stand in dread of Genesis, will
reply that Zoroaster was a Persian, living about six hun-
dred years B. C.
While this late date for him is certainly wrong, it may
be that his period is not so far back as the alleged date
of Moses. But the date and supposed writing of Moses
are assailed. We are told that he did not write the Penta-
teuch, and that Ezra and Nehemiah, about five hundred
years B. C, compiled some old Jewish legends and what
records they could find, and thus gave us the books cred-
ited to Moses. We are cited to Second Kings, chapter
22, where Hilkiah, the high priest, about six hundred and
twenty years B. C, says he found the book of Deuter-
onomy in the House of the Lord. If Moses wrote that
book, it lay hidden about nine hundred years. If written
on paper or papyrus, the folios would be rotten in five
hundred years. If on cowhides, the ink would fade long
ZOROASTER'S MARRIAGE 59
before nine hundred years. The "find" was, therefore, a
recent production. Then arises the question : If Deuter-
onomy was not written until six hundred years B. C,
when were the other books of the Pentateuch produced?
Were they not all written long subsequently to thirty-
four hundred years ago? Regarding both of these state-
ments about the mountains, and the fire, and the conver-
sations with the Lord, if a person writing to-day were to
make such assertions, he would be discredited at once.
We can readily believe a legend that has consistency
about it, one that is not so utterly at variance with all our
experience ; but when a legend, or the record of one, about
the improbable is given us for a sober verity, we have a
right to be suspicious and to question it.
The legend that when Zoroaster wished to get married
his father went in search of a wife for him, and that the
son insisted that the young lady should show her face
before the espousals, is not hard to believe. It is pre-
cisely what any sensible young man would wish to see
before the ceremony. Our credulity is not, in such a
case, taxed.
Marriage, however, must have been a pleasant condi-
tion for him, as we are told that he married three wives ;
and they were all living in his life time. We frown upon
this; but polygamy with the Iranians, as with the Jews,
was not only tolerated, but it was approved. David had
numerous wives, and Solomon, not to be surpassed, took
seven hundred, and for good measure, added three hun-
dred concubines."^
■^ 1st Kings, XI, 3. Solomon alas had so many wives
that ''they turned away his heart."
60 HIS CHILDREN
§ 5. Zoroaster, by his first wife, had one son and three
daughters; by his second, two sons; and by Hvovi, no
earthly children were born.^ But here again, legend
comes in, to say that Hvovi shall become the mother of
three sons: Hushedar, Hushedar-mah, and Soshyans; all
of the seed of the prophet. The angel Neryosang, it is
said, took charge of this seed, and a myriad of guardian
spirits are protecting it ; and by these sons, who are to be
born at later and different periods, the renovation of the
world will be accomplished. Hushedar is to be born
first, and will bring in the first Millennium, at which time
the renovation of the universe will take place. He will
have a conference with the Lord; and when he comes
away from that conference he will far surpass Joshua.
For he will say to the swift horse, the sun, "stand still,"
and the sun will stand still ten days and nights. And
when he cries "Move on," the sun will move on ; and
all mankind will then believe in the good religion of
Mazda.9
^ Bund., ch. 32, § 7, and note.
^ The reader will smile at this foolish nonsense ; for he
will know that the earth is traveling around the sun at
the rate of about 1,580,000 miles each day. Now Joshua
halted it only one day. He was kind enough to let it
move on during the night. He only wanted it to stop
long enough for his people to avenge themselves on their
enemies. (Joshua X, 13.) Hushedar, evidently, desires
a miracle for the purpose of "getting all mankind to be-
lieve in the good religion." Bundahis, pp. 231 and 2^2,
Vol. 5, S. B. E. Part i. Of course, both of these legends
are so utterly false and untrue that comment is unneces-
sary.
Shakespeare would say, "a plague on both of your
houses."
CHAPTER V.
Zoroaster's vision.
§ I. How long and how deeply Zoroaster pondered
the great problems of the future destiny of the human
family, before he commenced his crusade against the idol-
atrous practices which he everywhere saw around him,
we cannot definitely state. But if we rely upon those two
uncertain guides — Zad-Sparam and Zartust-Nama — he
was between fifteen and twenty years old before he be-
came definitely fixed in his opinions, and determined on
his course of action.
We recognize at once that he is a man of unsurpassed
courage, patience, and determination; for he labors ten
years before he secures his first convert. This was his
cousin, Medyomah. Perhaps some of those ten years
were passed in seclusion, on the mountains already re-
ferred to. He may have wandered about the country
preaching and teaching the doctrines which he, subse-
quently, emphasized in the Persian Bible. But we cannot,
for a moment believe that in one of those journeys he
passed through a sea whose waters receded and fell back
to allow him a dry passage. This foolish statement, made
in the Zartust-Nama, is probably copied from Second
Kings (chapter 2d), where Elijah smote the waters of
the Jordan with his mantle and they parted hither and
thither, so that he went over on dry land. But if it be
fomid difficult to credit the story of the parting of the
61
62 AN ARCHANGEL MEETS HIM
waters, how shall we credit that which is about to fol-
low? We are told that at the age of thirty, while walk-
ing in a solitary plain, he caught a vision of Medyona, at
the head of a mighty concourse of people, coming from
the North. This was a cheering omen to him, that the
good religion would yet attract all mankind.
He was then on his way to the river of conference (the
Daitu), which he crossed; but this stream did not part
its waters for him. He waded it. And just at break of
day, as he came up from the water, and was putting on
his clothes, he caught sight of the Archangel, Vonu-
Mano, approaching him. He was not startled at the
vision ; for it was in the human form ; handsome and ele-
gantly dressed in silk, though it was nine times larger
than man.^ The angel seems to have been aware of the
toils, the aspirations and hopes of the Prophet, and has
come to show him the splendors of the Eternal Presence.
"Whom mayest thou be, and what is thy great desire?"
the angel asks, and the "Prophet replies: "I am Zartust
of the Spitamas ; righteousness is my chief desire, and
my wish is to know and do the will of the sacred beings,
as they show me."
The angel directs the Prophet to lay aside his mortal
vestments, his body ; that they may proceed to the assem-
bly of the just and confer with the Almighty. This being
done, they go forward on foot, for the record is, that
Vohumano walked as much in nine steps as Zartust did
in ninety. The Iranian heaven has doors, the same as
^ We must not be surprised at this, for Isaiah saw the
Lord sitting on his throne, high and lifted up. Isaiah, ch.
6. Sacred Book of the East, Vol. 47, p. 156.
THEY VISIT HEAVEN 63
the Jewish heaven ; there are also windows in the Jewish
heaven. But the Jewish heaven further surpasses the
Iranian, in that it has horses of different colors.^
§ 2. As the Angel and the Prophet approach the Ira-
nian heaven the brilliancy of the Archangels becomes so
great that there is not a shadow in that glorious abode.
Ormazd is there, presiding. Zartust offers homage to
Him and to the Archangels, and takes a seat among
them. Here he is initiated into all the mysteries and mar-
vels that will greet the ecstatic soul on the eternal shore.
The Prophet questions the Almighty as to the perfec-
tion of the Saints ; and Ormazd makes answer, that the
first perfection is "good thoughts ; the second, good
words ; and the third, good deeds." And he admonished
him, that the carrying out of the commands of the Arch-
angels, is the best of all habits. Then the Lord explained
to Zaroaster that the evil spirits practice iniquities, be-
cause they love darkness ; and their thoughts, words, and
deeds, are in eternal divergence and conflict from those
loving the light.
Zoroaster is favored with three audiences by the Om-
niscient One the same day. The Archangels, thereupon,
expressed a desire to test his faith by having him walk
through fire, which he did, and was not burned. They
then poured melted metal upon his breast, and he was
unharmed. But this was not enough. They slashed his
2 Gen., 7. The windows of heaven were opened, etc.
Rev., 4, St. John saw a door, and behold it was opened.
Rev., 6. He saw horses, red, white and pale, etc. The
Iranian heaven is located in Iran. Vol. 47, S. B. E., p.
64 HIS FAITH TESTED
abdomen, in a vital part, with a knife, so that the blood
gushed forth; but the supposed mortal wound was in-
stantly healed by rubbing the hand lightly over it.
Shall we inquire whether these startling, marvelous
and incredible statements precede, or are they faint re-
flections from those other marvelous sayings in the book
of Daniel (ch. 3) where Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-
nego are bound, in their coats and hats, and flung into a
fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than it was wont
to be heated? And, did those three persons really come
forth from that furnace with not a hair of their heads
singed, or their garments burned?
Respecting these extreme tests mentioned in the Iranian
scriptures I will add that they are set forth to prove that
the religion of Ormazd is the true one. So, also, was the
furnace-story of Meshach written to prove that the God
of the Hebrews was the only true God. For the same
reason St. Mark (ch. 16) states that a believer in Jesus
may drink any deadly thing, and he shall not be harmed.^
The careful reader will at once detect contradictions in
this Iranian legend; for let it be borne in mind that
Vohumano told Zoroaster to lay aside his body ^ so that
he might confer with the Lord. While at that conference
the angels tested the Prophet by pouring hot metal on his
chest, and by wounding him with a knife, until the blood
gushed forth. That writer overlooked the fact that a
disembodied spirit hath neither flesh nor blood.
3 But the test in Mark seems never to have been made.
It is too dangerous to be attempted.
^ The Dinkard says, Vol. 47, S. B. E., p. 49. Deposit
this one garment, meaning the body, the vesture of the
soul.
A VISION OF ANGELS 65'^
Of course, no sane mind will believe that Zoroaster
actually obtained a personal audience with Ormazd, and
received by word of mouth from him directions and in-
structions as to establishing his religion. Did he, like St.
John on the Isle of Patmos, in the spirit see these mar-
vels above mentioned? St. John says he saw a throne,
and one that sat thereon; and he saw four and twenty
seats, and four and twenty elders, clothed in white, sit-
ting upon those seats. He saw, also, seven angels. Now
the Iranian Bible has seven amshaspands (angels). Per-
haps St. John saw the amshaspands themselves.
§ 3. The earlier Gathas, those believed to have been
actually composed by the Prophet, do not go to the ex-
travagant length of St. John in Patmos, or the writers
of the Dinkard. Those Gathas are exhortations and
prayers, in meter, repeated again and again, of a strug-
gling Saint, who seeks to know how he may approach the
Good Mind more devoutly. And the nearest approach to a
conference found in them is where the Prophet speaks of
the Herald sent to him by Ormazd, and the Herald asks
what he most desires ? ^ But if we turn our backs upon
the Dinkard, the Bundahis, Zad-Sparam, and other like
records, we shall have an imperfect picture of early Ira-
nian times, and perhaps of the Prophet himself. If we
take the middle ground between an actual conference with
Ormazd, and a vision, or trance, whereby the mind sees,
or seems to see, objects intangible and invisible to the
natural eye, we may well suppose that the Prophet's
B Yasna, 43, § 9.
fee TUR, THE SCANTY GIVER
elysian of joy came to an abrupt end when his enraptured
soul returned to his body. For he found that the real
battle of Hfe was now to begin.
He was, it must be remembered, thirty years of age,
and with great earnestness ^ he began inviting all man-
kind to the religion of Ormazd. His methods are aggres-
sive; and he boldly announces that he declares doctrines
''till then unheard ;" '^ and he prays for a "Mighty King-
dom, by whose force he may smite the Lie-demon." He
called unto all the world to extol righteousness, and to
resist the demons. The demons here mentioned are the
Kigs and Karpans, unbelievers and heretics. But when
he invited them and the nobles of the realm to the reli-
gion of Ormazd, they clamored for his death.
But Tur, called the scanty giver, the ruler of the Prov-
ince, would not allow the Prophet to be harmed ; though
neither the "scanty-giver" nor any of his nobles or follow-
ers would lend an ear to the hew religion.
Zoroaster, in rebuke of his treatment, exclaims on go-
ing forth: "I tell thee, thou Tur, and scanty-giver, that
thou art a stricken and smitten supplicant for righteous-
ness ; a producer of lamentation, worthy of death." ^
§ 4. He had made the mistake of commencing the ref-
ormation of the Iranian religion, by preaching to princes
and nobles ; they spurned him and thrust him out. Jesus,
walking by the sea of Galilee, and seeing two fishermen,
Simon and Andrew, casting their nets, said: "Follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men." And straight-
^ "With a loud voice." Dink., 7, ch. 4, § 2.
'^ Yasma, 31, §§ i and 4.
8 Dinkard, 7, ch. 4, § 20.
HIS FIRST CONVERTS ARE THE POOR 67
way they followed him. The common people, the poor
and the humble are the first to embrace any new-born
faith. The nobles and the rich patrician Jews held to
Saduceeism long after the masses had changed their faith
and become Pharisees. Methodism started in an obscure
corner, neither princes nor plutocrats were there. It was
born among the poor.
Patrician Romans persistently clung to Paganism gen-
erations after the lower classes had become Catholic.
Luther, on foot, and on his way to Augsberg to combat
Tetzel, and his indulgences, and later leaving by stealth
to escape capture and imprisonment, is but a picture
made some thousands of years later of Zoroaster escap-
ing with his life from Tur, the scanty-giver. From Tur,
the Prophet trudges wearily towards Vadevost, a rich old
Karap, who clings to his wealth with all the tenacity of a
Morgan or a Rockefeller. Vadevost is living in luxurious
splendor, and is the owner of vast herds of cattle and
horses. Slaves come and go at his bidding; streams of
wealth, from various sources, are pouring in upon him.
His rent roll is no doubt large. He is the prototype of
the Goulds and the Vanderbilts, of a later period. Zar-
tust asks a gift of some of this wealth for Ormazd ; and
promises Vadevost further splendor and glory if he com-
plies. With the arrogance of a newly-fledged American
Nabob the Karap shouted back, ''there is no opulence
for me in that. Besides my flocks and herds I have
many droves of a thousand swine f I am more opulent
than Ormazd himself." For this insolence a retribution,
^ He would, to-day, say ''there is no money in that."
Vol. 47, S. B. E., ch. 4, §§ 24 and 25.
68 KARPANS WOULD DESTROY HIM
which was to be meted to him after death, was pro-
nounced against him, and he was left for the present with
his vanity and his riches.
Thence Zoroaster journeyed to Seistan, on the borders
of Afghanistan, and presented himself before Parshad,
another provincial chief, and besought him to praise
righteousness and resist the demons. To this he con-
sented, but by no insistence would he accept the religion
of Mazda. Here, again, the Karpans sought the Prophet's
destruction, but he saved himself by chanting the Ahun-
avair.^^
1^ Yatha-ahuna Vairyo (Ahunavair), "The will of the
Lord is the law of righteousness. The gifts of Vohu-
Mano, to the deeds done in the world for Mazda, etc."
This prayer was thought to possess great efficiency in
thwarting evil-doers.
CHAPTER VI.
MORE VISIONS, CONFERENCES AND TEMPTATIONS.
All religions deal in the marvelous. It is a marvel if
God talked to Moses and Abraham. It is marvelous that
the Angels ate Abraham's calf.^ It is amazing if Elijah
could smite the waters of Jordan with his mantle and
compel them to roll back hither and thither, so that he
could pass. It is a marvel that Jesus could walk upon
the waters, and another marvel that after his crucifixion
his body could rise up into the sky ; that is, if it did ?
It is as great a marvel that Zoroaster talked with Or-
mazd as that Adam and Moses and Abraham talked with
God. But preternatural things and preternatural beings
make up the volume of all religions. Now, if we brush
these all aside, do we not make a great rent in the world ?
If angels really did appear, and lend a helping hand to
the Hebrews, is there any reason why they should with-
hold their good offices from Zoroaster and his people?
It would seem that the Karpans and heretics of Iran
needed reformation, as well as the idolatrous Jews. The
Iranian Scriptures tell us that Zoroaster had six other
1 They not only ate his calf, but they ate his milk and
butter. Gen., ch. i8, v. 7 and 8. The angels did not
come away without their dinner, for it was in the heat of
the day when Abraham sat in his tent ; so it must have
been noon when they approached him.
69
70 ANGELS DIRECT HIM
conferences with the angels, besides the one already men-
tioned. The first was with Vohumano, who instructed
him as to the care and protection of animals. The next
conference was with the angel Asha-Vahista, who en-
joined him to guard the sacred fires and places of wor-
ship. Then came the angel Shatvar, who directed him as
to the preservation of metals, that he might have domin-
ion over them. Spendarmad, the female Archangel, who
is also called "Bountiful Devotion" and has charge of
the earth, and virtuous women, advised him as to their
care.
In the sixth conference, the Spirits of the Seas and
Rivers came to instruct him. Lastly, the Spirits of Plants
came to him and told him of their care.
These several conferences were held when the Prophet
was between thirty and forty years of age. They ended
when he was forty, and the places of meeting, of the
last ones, were near the southern extremity of the Cas-
pian.2
These archangels admonished and warned Zoroaster
that the idolaters, the Kavi, Karpans, and skeptics, deaf
and blind to the truths he was about to proclaim, would
beset his path, and that at every turn the demons would
seek his ruin. But the angels gave him assurance that
whenever the demons made their assaults he could in-
stantly shatter their schemes and put them to flight by
chanting aloud the Ahunavair.^
2 The Daraga river is mentioned, but the locality of
that stream is uncertain.
3 See note at foot of preceding chapter.
REFORMS ALWAYS OPPOSED 71
§ 2. People to-day, and all along the centuries, as to
their religion, are, and have been, very much like the
Kavis and Karpans in that far-off period. Any innova-
tion upon established methods was objected to and was
fought to the bitter end. Luther met a similar opposi-
tion. Jesus undertook a great reform, and was nailed
to a tree. Wyckliffe (B. 1320 A. D.), for preaching and
teaching ecclesiastical reforms, died before he could be
executed. But after he had lain in his grave thirty years
a Catholic council ordered his bones dug up and burned.
John Huss, the great Bohemian reformer, for the same
reason, as late as 141 5 A. D., was publicly burned at the
stake, and his ashes were thrown into the Rhine. John
Calvin, that blood-thirsty old Presbyterian, about three
hundred and fifty years ago, caused Servetus to be cre-
mated on a pile of faggots because he disbelieved in the
Trinity.^ Even up to this hour schismatics are punished
by the churches ; but the stake and the faggot are super-
seded by censure and expulsion. Need we, therefore,
wonder that Iran's great teacher, in those earlier and
more savage times, encountered a fierce and deadly oppo-
sition ?
§ 3. If we may believe the Vendidad, the Archangel's
premonition and promise were soon put to the test ; for we
are told ^ that Angra-Mainyu (an actual personal devil)
sent Biuti, one of his demons, to kill the Prophet, and that
the Prophet, to save himself, chanted the Ahunavair.
^ If that old bigot were alive to-day, and was to engage
in that line of business, he would be obliged to have
numerous bonfires.
^ Ch. 19, Vendidad.
72 ANGRA-MAINYU TEMPTS HIM
Biuti, on hearing of this, rushed, dismayed away, and
reported to Angra-Mainyu, the superior arch-fiend, that
the glory of Zartust was so great that it was impossible
to kill him.
The same chapter (19) is a riddle of perplexities; for it
tells us that the Prophet went forward, swinging stones
in his hand, as big as a house, which Ahura-Mazda gave
him. Whereat, the devil asked him, **Why dost thou
swing those stones? The Prophet answered: "To smite
the creations of the devil ; to smite idolatry ; and I will
smite it until the victorious Soshyant shall come up to
life." ^ When this threat is made the Devil replies : "By
thy mother I was invoked," ''' and he begs Zoroaster not
to destroy his creatures and promises him that if he will
renounce the good religion of Mazda he will make him
the ruler of nations for a thousand years.^
This intended bribe is spurned by Zoroaster, who de-
clares, "That not for my life, even should my body be
torn, will I renounce the good religion." The Devil is
not yet satisfied, and asks, "By whose word and with
what weapons wilt thou smite my creatures ?" The Saint
replies, "O, Angra-Mainyu, evil-doer, the good spirit
^ Soshyant is the unborn son of Zoroaster, who is to
come bringing resurrection and the restoration of the
world.
^ This sentence plainly implies that Zoroaster's reli-
gion was different from his mother's. His was a re-
formed belief.
^ That is, he should gain such a boon as Vadhagnd
gained, who ruled one thousand years. Vend., 19, § 6.
(20) This temptation of the Devil precedes Jesus by a
thousand of years.
OTHER TEMPTATIONS 73-
made the creation. He made it in the boundless time.
The sacred cups; the Haoma; the Word; these are my
weapons. By these will I strike and repel thee." ^
§ 4. It must be borne in mind that the Vendidad was
composed after Zoroaster's period. Our Gospels were
likewise composed long after Jesus' death, and they are
supposed to reflect what happened to their great actor.^*
Now, as to Zoroaster, if anything is certain, it is that
he speaks in the Gathas; and they bear the same stern
impress of what is said in the Vendidad. However, these
lines from the Iranian source must not be passed lightly
by. That temptation there set forth is the great proto-
type and pattern of others that have followed. These
others are believed to be copies, dressed up a little, to
meet changed times and conditions ; yet they are written
in books, and hundreds of millions of people believe and
trust in the copies, but not the original.
Let us see as to this. About five hundred years B. C.
Gautama, the Buddha, who lived centuries later than
Zoroaster, started out to lead a life of penance, fasting
and prayer. He had not gone far when suddenly Mara,
the evil one, appeared, hovering over him, in the sky.
This devil, seeming to know the purpose of Gautama,
called out to him, saying, "You are a prince of earth;
^ The followers of Jesus use the sacred cup, with wine,
for their Homa; and St. John's mention of the Word
finds its antecedent here in the Parsee religion, long be-
fore Galilee, and the crucifixion were heard of.
^^ The first Gospel composed after the death of Jesus
was written A. D. 90, and one hundred years elapsed
before we had any such Gospels. The truth is three of
the Gospels were written in the second century.
74 MYTHS AND LEGENDS
do not go away and lead the life of a mendicant. If you
will return to your father's palace, I will, in seven days,
make you a Monarch. You shall rule over four great
continents." The bribe or temptation failed, and Buddha
led a life of sanctity. Thus the truth or legend of the
Vendidad had traveled along with passing generations,
keeping step with the ages, and was finally written as a
fact into Hindu records. To-day more than three hun-
dred and fifty millions of people believe in this trans-
planted legend.
§ 5. But myths and legends lose nothing by lapse of
years. This same legend, slightly varied, looms high in
the New Testament.!^ Let us, for a moment, carefully,
and with reverence, examine it. We are told that "J^sus
was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
of the Devil." We are not told who led him up. Did
the evil one? Now, he was led up on purpose to be
tempted; but what was the purpose of this temptation?
Was it to see if he would lapse and. abandon his high
mission, or was it to set an example for all time that
men should resist, when tempted?
After forty days of fasting the devil, knowing that he
was weak and exhausted from his long vigil, came and
took him up into the Holy City and sat him on a pinna-
cle of the temple. A pinnacle, we know, is a slender
turret, or cupola, elevated above the rest of the building.
How the devil got Jesus up there we are not told. Did
he climb a ladder? Did he carry him? He may have
dragged him; he may have coaxed him; he may have
seized him ; and hustled him through the air. But when
11 Matthew, ch. 4.
MORE TEMPTATIONS 75
he got him up there, he sat him on the pinnacle. How
long he sat there we are not told. It was at least a very-
prominent place to be sitting. Did any one see him sit-
ting there? It was at a dangerous height. Somebody
must have observed this strange performance. " There sits
Jesus, at that dizzy height, on the pinnacle of the temple ;
but as he was a carpenter he may have climbed to such
awful elevations before. Zoroaster, we are told, went
forward swinging stones in his hands, as big as a house,
to smite the wicked one.^^ It must not be overlooked
that all these devils are represented as living, acting, and
talking. It is plain that Zoroaster possessed a more war-
like spirit than did Jesus ; for he would smite the devil ;
but Jesus merely said, ''Get thee hence, Satan."
When Buddha was tempted, angels came to his assist-
ance, and frightened the fiends away. In the temptation
of Jesus, the devil is not yet satisfied; for he takes him
from the pinnacle of the temple up into an exceeding high
mountain, and shows him all the Kingdoms of the World,
and he offers them all to him if he will fall down and
worship him.
Now, here are three supposed great temptations, to
three great religious teachers. Worldly possessions, ex-
travagantly great, are offered in each instance. Zoroas-
ter is offered a thousand years' rule ; Buddha could hold
the scepter over four great continents, and Jesus was
offered all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of
them. The Parsees, millions of them, have believed that
Angra-Mainyu (the Devil) offered Zoroaster a thousand
years of worldly dominion. Millions of Buddhists are
12 Ante, § 2.
76 ALL RELIGIONS HAVE DEVILS
certain that Mara (the Devil) offered Buddha the rule
of four great continents ; and millions of Jesus' followers
believe that the Devil offered him all the Kingdoms of
the World. But the Christians do not believe that Angra-
Mainyu held the above dialogue with Zartust; nor do
they think that Mara proffered to Buddha four great
continents. On the other hand, the Buddhists are sure
that Mara actually appeared in the sky, to Gautama, with
that tempting bait. In short, neither of these peoples
believe the creed of the others. Their own, in their opin-
ion, is the right one; every other is a heresy. Now, if
majorities count in this matter, the Buddhists hold the
correct views; for they outnumber the others vastly.^ ^
and they are steadfast in their faith.
Are there not grave improbabilities against the actuali-
ties of all three of these legends? We are careful not
to affirm that they did happen ; nor shall we say they did
not happen. The credulous, in each of these religions,
will follow their own creed, and dispute and reject all the
others. But while we must admit that the poets, who
wrote these things, allowed a loose rein to their imagina-
tions; yet, are not the lessons they taught, that we must
ever resist temptation worthy of a place in all religions?
13 The Buddhists number about 400 millions. The
Christians, including Catholics, about 150 or 160 mil-
lions.
CHAPTER VII.
ARYAN CUSTOMS AND RELIGION.
Having now reached that point where we find Zoroas-
ter devoting his Hfe to the religious instruction of his
people, it is important that we make brief inquiry into
their lives, habits and customs. And as his struggle is
to establish a new religion, we ought to know something
of that which he sought to displace. The certain facts
are meager, but it is undisputed that he came from that
great prolific Aryan family which for thousands of years
has ruled and mastered all the other races upon the earth.
At Zoroaster's period the Aryans in Iran and Bactria
were no longer nomads. They lived in houses and led
settled lives. They were further advanced than Abraham,
who lived in a tent, and was a wandering nomad; and
this, at a time when the Iranians were cultivating their
fields. The Aryans owned cattle, and horses, pigs, and
fowls. And having passed beyond the nomadic period,
to that of tillers of the soil, they thought themselves more
noble than roving nomads. In fact, Arya, in Sanscrit,
means noble ; and the word Iran, is simply a later name
for Aryan, which probably came from the root Ar — to
plow. It was more than one thousand years after Abra-
ham's day that Isaiah mentioned "the young Asses that
ear the ground"; that is plow or Ar the ground.^
While it is probably true that a great share of the
^ Isaiah, ch. 30, v. 24.
77
78 THE ARYANS 7,000 YEARS AGO
wealth of the old Aryans consisted in herds of cattle, yet,
at the time of the Prophet, the pastoral was secondary to
the agricultural life. They had surely progressed be-
yond Genesis (ch. 4) ; for Abel, *'a keeper of sheep," was
approved above Cain, a tiller of the ground. The Aryans
held ''the thrifty toiler in the fields in higher esteem than
the keeper of flocks."
It is plain that those Aryans, six or seven thousand
years 2 ago, were further advanced than Adam in his day.
Geology and Philology join hands in proof of this. They
had houses with doors ; they plowed the fields ; they were
clothed; and they made potter}'. Glue and pitch were
known to them. They made their bread with yeast.
They had wagons, and hammers, and anvils. They had
stone mortars, in which to pound their grain. Later on
they had iron mortars. We know this, because they used
words which mention, and describe all these things. But
they lived at a time when law and order were not as well
established as to-day.
We smile at their childish superstitions, which led them
to believe that, in the gloom of night, witches and ghosts
swarmed in the air, and that demons stalked abroad with
evil intent.
§ 2. The sun dispelled that gloom ; and what more
reasonable than to give thanks to it. The Aryans, like
Joshua, believed that the sun, instead of the earth, moved ;
therefore the sun had life.
The waters in the rivers were moving ; the clouds above
were drifting across the sky; the sun traveled all day
long; in short, they all moved; and as the Aryan could
2 Yasna, 31, § 10.
THEIR EARLY DEITIES 79
move, because he had Ufe, he reasoned that they, like
himself, must be living things. They were believed to be
persons, infinitely greater than himself; and in his time
of trouble, and hour of need, he addressed them for help.
They were deities ; and he prayed to them as such ; but
among them all, the sun was the supreme or highest God.
He called him Dyaus, the shining God, or God of Light.
The Greeks, later, called this God Zeus. The Veda men-
tions him as Dyaus-pater or Heaven-God. It is but a
step beyond this Heaven-God, to say Heavenly Father.
In the later Avesta, this Dyaus is called Mithra, the
Lord of wide pastures, who hath a thousand ears, and
ten thousand eyes. He knows the truth, and he seeth
all things ; and the wretch who would lie unto him would
bring ruin upon the whole country. He is called, also,
the undying, shining, swifthorsed sun ; and the Aryans
believed that if he should not rise up, then the Daevas
(devils) would destroy all things, and the angels or good
spirits would not be able to withstand them. Sacrifices
and libations were offered unto this "Lord of the wide
pastures" ; for he was the first of the heavenly Gods who
lit up the beautiful summits of Hara, and ''from thence,
with a beneficent eye, looked over the abode of the
Aryans." ^
Now, if this later Avesta was written about six hun-
dred years before Jesus' day, the Jews were similarly
engaged; for they were ''burning incense unto Baal; to
the sun; and. to the moon and the planets; and to all
the hosts of Heaven." But Josiah, with great rigor,
3 Mihir Yast, § 13.
80 ARYAN WARS AND SLAVES
punished the Jews for their idolatry. He slew the priests,
burned the images, and burned the bones of the priests,
on their overturned altars. Nevertheless, with all his
murderous cruelty and barbarity, he performed one pious
act; for he destroyed Tophet, in the valley of Hinnon,
that no man might thereafter cause his son or daughter
to pass through the fire to Moloch.^
§ 3. Those early Iranians were merely the antetypes
of all the tribes and nations to this day. Man is a quarrel-
some, fighting animal ; and if the dark side of this story
must be told, the Aryan tribes and clans often engaged
in bloody, cruel and desolating wars. It was with them,
as with later peoples ; until such time as it became profit-
able to retain prisoners of war as slaves, they were bar-
barously murdered. In truth, this old earth has been
cursed with slavery almost from man's day of coming.
The inspired word of God, directed the Jews to purchase
their bondsmen, from the heathen round about them.^ If
we may really suppose that to be a direction from Heaven,
and the Aryan ignorantly followed it, they of course did
no wrong. Now, if Zoroaster lived about the time of
this Leviticus order, he probably saw its fulfillment many
times over. The ancient Aryans, however, either origi-
nated or copied a system of tyranny, which followed on
down to the days of Rome. In each family a petty des-
potism prevailed. The house-father held the keys of life
and death. He possessed the power to sell his sons and
daughters; to banish them; to marry them to whom he
wished, or to destroy them at will. If the house-father
^ 2d Kings, ch. 23.
5 Leviticus XXV., 44.
CLOUDS WERE COWS OF THE SKY 81
was worshipped, it was probably two or three genera-
tions back; far enough at least for time to have erased
all memory of his tyrannical acts.^
The old Aryans were gifted with fervid imaginations,
and from them have sprung all the great poets and
writers of the world. They saw the clouds, like creatures
of life, flying across the heavens; and they named them
the cows of the sky; for they dropped their milk (the
rain) to the earth, which made the woods and hills green
with verdure.
If the clouds did not appear, and the earth became dry,
parched and barren, they fancied that the evil one had
imprisoned them in some corner or mountain fastness.*^
The cow, as one of the means of honorable support to
the Aryan family, was held in high esteem. This love of
that animal traveled west, penetrated Syria, and there,
on the top of the pillars of a great temple, was sculptured
more than twenty-five hundred years ago the recumbent
form of a cow.
It may seem childish that the Aryans should sacrifice
to the cows of the sky, but mankind, all along the cen-
turies, has been following the myths, fictions and fables
of his imagination, or worshipping idols made by his
^ The Jews, in the fifth commandment, are directed to
"Honor their fathers and mothers, that their days may
be long in the land." Exodus, 20, 12.
^ This same old fable was carried across the mountains
to the Indus, and when I come to speak of Buddha, and
his religion, it will there be seen that Indra, one of the
Hindu Gods, destroyed the monster Vritra and released
the cows.
82 HOM-JUICE
own hands. The Jews prostrated themselves before
Aaron's golden calf; and the leaven of that lump seems
to have permeated, to this day, the whole family of man.
The old Aryans did not lack for deities ; they had multi-
tudes of them. Haoma, a creature of their own hands,
was one of their earliest. Far back, beyond the days of
Zoroaster; back before the Rig- Veda was composed;
back more than five thousand years ago ; in that distant
age, while yet the future Hindu and the future Iranian
were one people, they brewed from a vine or plant, a
liquor, called Haoma, which when drank, produced a sort
of exhilaration or ecstasy.
§ 4. The Hindus, after the separation, called it Soma.
It was made from the Hom plant, a small bush or vine
somewhat resembling the milk bush of India.^
It is probable that the drinking of Hom- juice produced
more than mere ecstasy ; for the Hindus, subsequently,
used this beverage on going into battle, as a stimulant to
their courage. Our estimation of it may not be ver>'
exalted, but the old Aryans considered it of great virtue
and efficacy. They used it in religious rites and cere-
monies, and called it ''the Holy One, driving death afar."
All other intoxicants, they said, "go hand in hand with
rapine of the bloody spear; but Homa's stirring power
goes hand in hand with friendship."
Zoroaster did not believe in this ; for he prayed Mazda
and asked: "When will men drive hence this polluted,
drunken joy, whereby the Karpans with their angry
^ In ch. 3, § I, we have seen that Zoroaster was pro-
duced by his parents drinking cow's milk and Hom- juice
infused.
WE TAKE WINE— NOT HOM-JUICE 83
zeal would crush us? and by this inspiration the tyrants
of the provinces hold their evil rule." ^
We ask, do the professed Christians of the present day
copy, in the Eucharist, this ancient Homa usage? It
was in the world as a thanksgiving feast, long centuries
before the Lord's Supper was instituted. Did Jesus and
his followers copy this old Aryan custom?
^ Yasma, 48:10. The Karpans or Kavi, we have seen,
were unbelievers in Zoroaster's gospel. They were his
bitter enemies all his life; and one of them finally slew
him. Dinkard, B. 8, ch. 35, note 3.
CHAPTER VIII.
VISTASPA — ZOROASTER IN PRISON.
§ I. As we shall hereafter see Vistaspa's name fre-
quently mentioned in connection with Zoroaster's, it may
be well to here notice some of the foolish legends con-
cerning him. In the Persian Bible, Vistaspa is frequently
called a king; but he was not a king of any noted prov-
ince or realm. He was at most only a petty chief, or king
of a small tribe or clan. This is all that can be rightly
claimed for him ; and even this rests upon sandy founda-
tions, unless we believe Lactantius, who makes him an
ancient king of Media, centuries before the founding of
Rome.
Persian history does not mention him. Median history
is silent about him; and it is only the colossal figure of
Zoroaster that rescues him from oblivion.
Now, if we allow that the Prophet's time was coeval
with the Rig- Veda, we must place Vistaspa and Frashos-
tra, and others mentioned in the Gathas there also. If
Vistaspa lived in Seistan, down on the borders of Af-
ghanistan, or at Bactria or Media, then Frashostra, and
Gamaspa, and the Prophet were there also.
Tradition tells us that when the Prophet presented
himself at the court of Vistaspa, he encountered every
possible kind of opposition. First, he had a long debate,
lasting two or three days, with the most learned of the
realm, about his new religion. They propounded thirty-
84
STILL IN PRISON 85
three questions to him; and he, having come off vic-
torious, his antagonists scheme and plot against him until
he is thrown into prison and left to starve. This part of
the story has many duplicates and counterparts, even
down to a late period; for innovators, upon old creeds
and beliefs, have always found the Karpans and Tetzels
arrayed against them. The seer had now been at Vis-
taspa's court two years ; laboring zealously for his con-
version, but evil influences had overborne him vastly.
He was condemned and in prison, for righteousness' sake.
But no angel came at night, as in Peter's case,^ to loose
his bands and lead him forth. Even Vohu-Mano seems
to have neglected him. His sufferings in prison, in heavy
fetters, and from starvation, are so great that his hearing
grows dull, his vision becomes impaired, his legs refuse
to bear up his wasted body, he is so tortured with hunger
and thirst that he is ready to collapse.^
It would look as though the end were not far off ; but
now comes a miracle by which he is released. Vistaspa
owns a beautiful horse, whose legs, at this time, are so
drawn up to his body that it is impossible for him to
move. In some way the Prophet, in his cell, learns of
this and sends word to the King that he will, on four
certain conditions, restore his charger. The King, anx-
ious about his favorite, inquires the terms, which are:
that one fore-leg will be released, if he will accept the
new faith. This agreed to, Zoroaster fervently prays for
the restoration of the horse, and the fore-leg immediately
comes down. The next stipulation is that Isfander, the
^ Acts, 12.
* /VCIS, 12.
2 Dinkard 7, ch. 4, § 67.
86 RELEASED— SUPPOSED MIRACLE
King's son, shall do battle for the new religion. This
agreed to, one of the hind legs is healed. For another
leg, the prisoner stipulates the conversion of Hutaosa, the
Queen. Lastly, the Prophet demands the names of his
false accusers, and that they be punished; which, being
done, the horse is instantly restored.
This story, which may be one for casuists to consider,
and probably reject, hath, at least, as much semblance of
truth about it as that concerning Peter, when he was
escaping from prison; that the gates thereof "opened of
their own accord," and let him out.^ Either the imagina-
tions of the poets, who detailed these adventures, had
much to do with the escapes of Peter and Zoroaster, or
angels, truly, must have assisted them. The reader,
learned or unlearned, will have no difficulty in deciding.
§ 2. Immediately after Zoroaster's release from pris-
on, we are told, that Mazda, the Lord, sent three Arch-
angels, Vohuman, Asha-Vahista and Burzhim-Mitro (the
angel of fire) to Vistapa to encourage him, or as it were,
to brace him up in the new faith. The radiance or efful-
gence of these angels is so astounding that the king and
all his court are shaken with fear. Seeing his trepida-
tion, Burzhim-Mitro bespoke his assurance that the an-
gelic envoys were not sent to do him ill ; but to promise
him a long life and a prosperous reign on condition that
he shall push forward the faith preached by Zoroaster.
"But," added the angel, ''thou must chant the Ahunavair ;
thou must not worship demons ; thy reliance must be
upon the new religion. We promise thee an immortal
3 Acts, 1 2, 10.
ANGELS' VISITS 87
son, Peshyton, who shall be hungerless and thirstless;
predominant both here, and with the Spirits. We will
give unto thee a long sovereignty of one hundred and fifty
years. But if thou wilt not praise the good and pure
religion, of the righteous Zaratust, we will not convey
thee up on high. Vultures will devour thy body; the
earth shall drink thy blood."
Now, these angels either finding that the prince spread
an elaborate table, or that he must be further admonished,
conclude to take up their abode with him.^
Ormazd, knowing that this acceptance of the religion,
by Vistaspa, will provoke an invasion of his realm by
Arjasp, and the Khyons, sends the angel Neryosang to
draw aside the veil of the future, and allow the prince to
catch a glimpse of his own glory and the discomfiture of
his enemies. This oriental picture is not yet complete.
Marzda sends Asha Vahista, the foremost angel in holi-
ness, who bears a most beautiful saucer, the finest that
can be made for royalty, and this is filled with a magical
nectar, fit for the Gods, which Vistaspa quaffs. His vis-
ion thereby is instantly so amplified that he is enabled to
see the rapturous spot set apart for him in Paradise.
Nor are his family and court overlooked. They are either
endowed with universal wisdom or they are made in-
vulnerable to the assaults of their enemies.
§ 3. One of these pledges, we know, did not come
true; for Isfander, Vistasps' son, at this princely and
angelic gathering, sought to have his body made invulner-
able to the shafts of the enemy, that he might do battle
4 Dinkard 8, 11, 3. Dk. 7, 4, 76 to 86.
88 DEFICIENT CHRONOLOGY
more effectively for the new religion. For that purpose
he was given a drink of Pomegranate. But the angelic
promise, and the Pomegranate, both failed him in dire
time of need ; for he was afterward slain, as we shall see,
while doing valiant battle for the new religion, which he
had so heartily espoused.
If asked the dates of these supposed angelic visits, I
am totally unable to make answer. For the Avesta, and
in fact all ancient Iranian writings, are lamentably defi-
cient in chronology. It is difficult to account for this,
except on the theory that the people of Iran were, as were
the authors of Veda, deficient in their organs of eventual-
ity.'^ Or it may have been that no great event or epoch
in their history furnished a starting point from which to
date their records. In fact, the ancient Persians kept no
dates; even their Holy Book, the Avesta, their Bible, is
silent as to when and where it was composed. Nor does
it mention the birthplace of Zoroaster, its great and
world-famous apostle.
The Jews, more considerate of Abraham, their own
^ The Rig- Veda is an old record, having an established
antiquity of 4,100 to 4,300 years, and perhaps even be-
yond that. It is, in short, the Hindu Bible. The word
Veda means knowledge, and the Hindus claim that their
prophets, or seers, heard (Sruti) the words there written
as uttered by Brahma (their God). It dates back beyond
the flood. In fact, when Noah was gathering the animals
into the Ark ( ?), the Hindu priests were composing their
Bible. The Hindus being a religious people, there was
no occasion to droum them ; for they were worshipping
God the best they knew. The flood, therefore, did not
reach India, nor did it touch Egypt.
LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF ZOROASTER 89
first great teacher, tell us of his birthplace ; they mention
his ancestry, and they follow him with considerable par-
ticularity from Ur of the Chaldees, to the closing scene
in the field of Ephron. Zoroaster was not so fortunate,
hence the interminable disputes, as to when and whence
he came.
CHAPTER IX.
ZOROASTER READS THE AVESTA TO VISTASPA. SOSHYANS TO
BE BORN OF A VIRGIN, AND TO BRING ON THE RESSUR-
RECTION OF THE DEAD. THE FOOD OF THE RESURRECTED.
§ I. In the preceding chapter many marvelous and
questionable things are related about the conversion of
Vistasp. But, shall we call it marvelous, if Persian rec-
ords mention Zoroaster in the same manner that the
Pentateuch speaks of Moses? Now, the Persians say-
that God taught their Holy Book, the Avesta, to their
Prophet. They insist that God said to Zoroaster: "Go
and read to Vistasp this Sacred Book, that he may come
unto the faith. Keep all my counsel, and repeat it word
by word to him."
In obedience to this command Zoroaster went to the
court of Vistasp, where he called down a blessing upon
him. He said : 'T bless thee, O, Man ! Lord of the coun-
try, I pray thee to live a good life, an exalted life, that
thou mayest live long. May sons be born unto thee!
Mayest thou have a son as wise as Gamaspa ; ^ may he
bless thee ! Mayest thou be glorious and strong, like
Keresaspa, wise without fault : rich in cattle, and rich in
horses. Mayest thou be holy, beloved by Mazda, and
reverenced by men. Mayest thou follow the law of truth,
1 Gamaspa was Prime Minister, and had early em-
braced the new religion.
90
HEAVEN PROMISED 91
conquer thy foes, have fulness of welfare, and be freed
from death, like King Khosrav, who went alive into the
blissful abode of the Holy Ones." 2
The Prophet then read to him the Avesta, and said:
"Learn its truths, and walk therein. If thy desire is
towards its laws, thy abode shall be in the Paradise of
heaven. But if thou turnest away from its command-
ments, thou wilt bring down thy crowned head to the dust.
God will be displeased with thee, and thou wilt surely be
overthrown, and at the last thou shalt descend into hell.
Listen, then, O King, to the counsel of the Almighty." ^
Thereupon, Zoroaster offered up a sacrifice by the river
Daitu, with Homa and meat, and baresma^ and liba-
tions; and "with words rightly spoken," that he might
bring the Kavi (King) Vistaspa to think and speak and
2 King Khosrav, like Enoch and Elijah, got into heaven
without dying. Three very fortunate ones. But, did
they? If so, then we take our bodies to heaven.
3 Vol. 23, S. B. E., Vistasp-Yast.
* The Baresma ceremony of purification, when a man
or woman had become unclean, through contact with
the dead, or other defilement, differs, somewhat, from
the purification ceremony in Leviticus ; but the object is
the same. The Persian priest cut a handful of twigs,
from a dry clean part of the earth, and while holding
them in his hand, recited parts of the liturgy ; during
which he washed the twigs and tied them together with
the Kusti or girdle. The unclean person was then
sprinkled on the head and jaws ; then the right ear, then
the left, etc. It was a silly ceremony, and on a par with
the foolish cleanings in Leviticus. There the tip of the
right ear was touched with the blood of the slain lamb
(Leviticus, eh. 14) ; then the thumb of the right hand;
92 ZOROASTER, A MAN OF SORROWS
act according to the law of the Lord.^ He offered a
similar sacrifice for the conversion of Hutaosa, Vistasp's
queen, and prayed that she might spread the Holy Maz-
dean law throughout all the world. These sacrifices
were most probably offered before Zoroaster visited
Vistaspa ; or about the time he set out on that dangerous
and trying mission. One thing is certain; that he faced
a long and arduous struggle in establishing his creed.
We have seen that he encountered such fierce opposi-
tion, that it was ten years before he secured Medyomah,
his cousin, as a follower. One convert in ten years was
surely a severe test of his courage, his zeal, and his
patience. That he was a "Man of sorrows and acquaint-
ed with grief," none who will ponder his words, will
dispute. Listen to his mournful plaint. It is the voice
of one crying in the wilderness: "To what land shall
I turn? aye, turning, whither shall I go? On the part of
kinsman, prince or peer^ none to give offerings; none
to help my cause ; nor yet the throngs of labor ; still less
the evil tyrants of the provinces. How, then, O Lord,
shall I establish the faith? My following is scant, there-
fore, I cry unto Thee, O Lord, desiring helpful grace.
then the great toe of the right foot But the Jewish
priest got a dinner from the meat offering (Leviticus,
ch. X, 12). Which of these foolish ceremonies preceded
the other? Will the reader answer?
5 Was the river Daitu in Bactria ? If so, it helps to
fix the birthplace of the prophet. Abah-Yast, § 105;
Gos-Yast, § 25 ; S. B. E., Vol. 23.
^ He had married Frashostra's daughter, and Fra-
shostra was a peer of the realm; but had not yet em-
braced the faith.
SONS TO BE BORN OF VIRGINS 93
When is the Savior, Soshyans, with his lofty revelations,
and plans for the renovation of the universe, to appear?"
These are words of gloom and waning hope; but in a
moment the spirit of resistance comes; for the Prophet
was a man of courage, and did not scruple to use force,
to overthrow or destroy those hostile to him. He lived
in perilous and warfare times. The authorities were
against him and his creeds ; and he exclaims : "Whoever
will hurl the evil governor from power or from life,
makes for the general good."
§ 2. As to this Soshyans, mentioned above, a word
must be said. According to the later Avesta, the Din-
kard, the Bundahis, Zad-Sparam and other works ; Husa-
dar, Husadar-Mah, and Soshans, are three unborn sons
of Zoroaster; and a myriad of angels are protecting his
seed. Wonderful fictions are told of what these sons are
to do and perform. They are to be born of virgins; and
Husedar and Husedar-mah are to appear at different
times, or millenniums, to renovate and restore the earth.
But in the fullness of time, Soshans is to appear. He
will be born of a virgin, the same as Jesus. Her name
is Eredat-Fedhri."^ She bathes in the sea of Zara, in
Seistan, conceives, and Soshans is born.
"He will make glad the whole world. He will be called
Astvat-Erata ; for he will make bodily creature rise up.
He will restore the world, which will, thereafter, never
grow old and never die, but ever increasing. Creation
shall grow deathless; the Drug (the devil), though he
may rush on every side to kill the holy beings, yet he
^ Yast 13, § 62, and note 2.
94 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
and his evil brood shall perish. It is the will of the
Lord." 8
§ 3. The resurrection of the dead is of such stupen-
dous importance that it eclipses all other questions. It
demands, therefore, from every one the most serious con-
sideration.
Zoroaster taught that all good thoughts, good words
and deeds, will reach Paradise ; ^ that all evil thoughts,
words and deeds drag the soul toward the abode of the
demons. And he prayed: ''O Mazda! Most beneficent
Spirit! Maker of the Universe! How shall I free the
world from the Drug, that evil doer? How shall I drive
away defilement? And the answer came: "Invoke my
Fravashi (Spirit), whose soul is the Holy Word."^<^
The final happiness of the just, and the discomfiture
of the wicked, is repeated again and again, all through
Zoroaster's writings; but he does not, in direct and un-
equivocal language, teach the resurrection of the body.
That senseless and fallacious doctrine is a plant of later
growth. But the resurrection of the body is plainly and
distinctly taught by later Persian priests. 'The dead,"
they say, "shall rise up, and life shall come to the bodies \
and they shall keep the breath." All the bodily world
shall become free from old age and death, from corrup-
tion and rot, forever and forever.^i Soshans, by order
of Ormazd, will give to every man the reward and
recompense of his deeds.^^
« Farvadin Yast, § 129, S. B. E., Vol. 23, p. 220; Zam-
yad Yt., § 89.
^ Westengard fragments, p. 247, Vol. 4, S. B. E.
1^ Vend. Fargard, 19, §§37 and 38.
^^ Zend, fragments, p. 253, Vend.
12 Bund., ch. 30, §27
RESURRECTION CONTINUED 95
It must be admitted that if the dead are to be resur-
rected, with the stomach and internal parts as they now
are; the eternal bread-and-butter question will confront
the resurrected world; and it did confront those Iranian
writers. They saw the dilemma, and solved it, as fol-
lows: They said in the Millennium of Hushedra-Mah,
the strength of appetite will diminish, so that men can
remain three days and nights in superabundance, with
one taste of food. That by dieting down from meat to
milk, and milk to water, they can, even before Soshans
comes, remain ten years without food and not die.^^
The Jews in Jesus' day did not all believe in the resur-
rection. The Sadducees said there is no resurrection,
neither angel nor spirit. The Pharisee confessed both.^^
But Jesus said, ''the resurrected are the children of
God"; and that those accounted zvorthy of resurrection,
do not marry ; neither can they die any more ; they are
equals unto the angels." ^^ But if only those "accounted
worthy of resurrection" are to be resurrected, is there
not a very plain implication that the unworthy will re-
main in the gloomy underworld? The book of Wisdom
(ch. 2) tells us that death came into the world through
envy of the Devil. But whence came this great consoling
thought, that mankind will escape the darkness and the
eternal silence of the grave? The answer is ready: It
came from the Persians, and it was taught them by the
founder of their religion, Zoroaster. We leave this mat-
ter here for the present, to be further considered in a
subsequent chapter.
13 Bund., ch. 30, §§ I to 5.
14 Matt. 22, 23 ; Acts 23, 8.
1^ Luke 20, V. 2y to 36, plainly implies that only the
just shall be resurrected.
CHAPTER X.
THE KINVAD BRIDGE.
§ I. The evils which Zoroaster's enemies would bring
upon him and his followers, he prays may be borne back
against them, and that no help shall keep them from
misery. This would seem to be the law of "an eye for
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." But directly the good
mind possesses him, and he asks how he may adore the
Bountiful Lord; and with what words he shall teach the
people. He makes bold the promise that the man or
woman who will teach the words of life he will lead on,
even to the Judge's Bridge. And that when they ap-
proach that Bridge, the believing ones will go forth
firmly with him as a guide. But the Karpans and Kavi
(heretics and unbelievers), whose lives are loaded with
evil deeds, their own souls and consciences will meet
them at the Bridge, and will there condemn and decry
them. They shall miss the path and fall; and "in the
Lie's abode shall their habitation be." But for the peni-
tent, there is hope ; "even their former foes, the tribes
and kith of the Turanians" ; if they will accept the faith,
shall not fall from the Bridge ; "but with the Lord, they
shall dwell in joyful peace." ^
The Kinvad Bridge, or Judge's Bridge, being the
final assize of the departed soul, deserves especial notice.
1 Yasna 46, S. B. E. Vol. 31
96
BRIDGE AND HELL BENEATH IT 97
The Iranians believed that the first mountain that rose
up out of the earth was Alborz;^ and from the top of
this mountain, which they supposed reached around the
earth, stretched the Kinvad Bridge. The span reached
from earth to the eternal shore.
The Iranians believed that in this life all wicked
thoughts, wicked words and wicked deeds, were charged
up by the angels against the offender, and as a balance
or offset against these sins he received a credit in the
book of accounts, for all good thoughts, good words and
good deeds; and if the balance was found in his favor
he could pass the Bridge in safety.^ Dogs were there to
tear the wicked. The Jewish or English Bible also has
dogs outside for the same purpose.'* But Matthew has a
gate, with a narrow way, leading up to it; and only a
few can find the gate. The way to destruction, however,
has a broad road and a great, wide gate, "and many there
be who go in thereat." ^ At Kinvad Bridge Angels
watched at the earthly end to welcome the souls of the
just. In the middle of this Bridge, and beneath it, was
the gate of Hell. Demons lurked there to snatch their
own.®
2 The same a Hara Berezaiti ; supposed to be the moun-
tain range south of the Caspian Sea.
3 The Egyptians copied this.
"^ Revelation 22, 14 and 15.
^ Matt. VII, 13 and 14. The writers of the Gospels
and Revelation, probably copied from the Avesta, and
changed the Bridge into Gates,
® It is probable that some of these sayings about this
Bridge were grafted into the Persian Bible after Zoro-
aster's day. His punishment was mental, as we shall see.
98 SOUL OF THE RIGHTEOUS
When one of the faithful departed this life, his soul,
for three days and nights, was believed to linger near
the body, singing the Gathas,*^ meanwhile tasting as much
pleasure as the whole living world could taste. At the
end of the third night the soul of the just, amid plants
and flowers, and sweet scented zephyrs, reached, at
dawn, the all-happy mountain Alborz and the Bridge.
Here his own conscience, advancing in the form of a
beautiful maid, fair as the fairest of earth, met him.^
She addressed him thus: "O thou Youth, of good
thoughts, good words and good deeds, I am thy own con-
science. Thou didst love the good religion. When thou
didst see a man deriding holy things, or engaged in idol-
atry, or shutting the door in the face of the poor, then
thou didst sing the Gathas, and didst worship Atar, the
son of Mazda (the Lord)^ and didst rejoice the faithful
from near and from far.
The Bridge for the righteous widens to the length of
nine javelins; that is, about forty-nine feet; and the
happy soul, in safety, passes to the land of the leal. Here,
Vohuman, the angel of good thoughts, the doorkeeper of
Paradise, greets him. The righteous one, the perfume
of whose soul makes devils to tremble, thereupon takes
up his abode with the angels forever more.
We need not smile at this, for our own Heaven hath
■^ The Gathas are chanted, and are somewhat similar
to the Psalms of the English Bible.
8 Yast XXII, S. B. E. Vol. 23.
^ In the Persian Bible Mazda has a son, Atar, but he
also has a daughter, Ashi-Vanguhi. Yast, 17, p. §.2.
THE WICKED SOUL 99
doors, windows and gates.^*^ Daniel wanted to be a door-
keeper in the House of the Lord, and Nathan told David
he was a murderer, for he killed Uriah, the Hittite, in
order to get his wife (2d Samuel, 12), and David did
not, at last accounts, become a doorkeeper.
§ 2. With the wicked it is the reverse of all this.
When he dies his soul, for three nights, lamenting, cries
out: "To what land shall I turn? Whither shall I go?
And on that night his soul tastes as much suffering as
the whole living world can taste. At the end of the third
night, when the dawn appears, it seems to the unfaithful
one, as if he were brought, amidst snow and stench,^'
and as if a wind were blowing from the north, foul
scented, which he sorrowfully inhales.
The Arda-Viraf has it that the soul of the wicked is
met by a horrid old woman, who is, in fact, his own mis-
shapen, perverted conscience. She is naked, decayed,
profligate, lean-hipped and ugly beyond measure. She
is hideous, noxious and filthy, and she bars his way. She
confronts him. "Who art thou?" the wicked one asks:
"than whom I never saw an uglier or more horrid look-
ing creature, of Ahriman (the Devil) than thy hideous
features present." With a hateful leer, the drab makes
reply : ' "I am thy bad actions ; I am hideous and vile ;
but I am thy evil thoughts, thy evil words, thy evil deeds.
Thou wast a worker of iniquity. When thou sawst
1^ Doors. Psalms 84, 10. Doors. St. John 10, i.
Gates. Matt. VII, 13. "The windows of heaven were
opened." Genesis VII, 10 and 11.
^1 The Persian hell was in the North; but some place
it in the center of the earth.
100 THE PERSIAN HELL
those of the good religion in the service of God, thou
didst practice the will of the demons. Thou wast ava-
ricious, and didst shut the door in the face of the poor.
Though I am wicked, abandoned and unholy, I have
been made more frightful by thee. I am sent to the
Northern regions of the demons, but thy evil thoughts,
and words, and deeds, have driven me to a farther verge."
The soul of the wicked one, now raging fiercely, pre-
sents itself at the Kinvad Bridge. A concourse of de-
mons, at the gate of hell, are on the watch. The dogs
snarl at him, and tear him. The drab continues to chide
him, and as he enters the way of the Bridge, it shrinks
and narrows to a razor's edge. He hesitates ; he falters ;
the awful chasm below terrorizes him ; hideous, frightful
forms leer at him. Faint with fear, he drops into the
awful abyss, where the demons seize him and drag him
to their dark abode.
This is the lowest or worst hell.^^ jh^ Dadistin (ch.
33), divides hell into three grades. In the first, or easiest
hell, the sins have not been very grievous, there having
been some good thoughts, and good words, and good
deeds; the soul is held in a dark, ill-smelling place. In
the second hell, the sins have been of a deeper hue, with
very few good thoughts to balance against them. This
place is not only dark and stenchy, but the demons are
there, and the sinner gets neither peace nor comfort.
The third hell is where the sins have been excessive, ter-
rible and awful, with no good thoughts or works what-
The Jews had, also, *'the lowest hell." This may
have been copied, in part, from Deuteronomy, ch. 32,
V. 22,
HAMISTAKEN 101
ever, and he goes to the most gloomy, the deepest and
darkest abode of all.
§ 3. But there was a place called (Hamistaken) ever
stationary, where the soul, whose good words and works
just fairly balanced the evil; such a soul was halted at
the Bridge, and is to remain there until the renovation
of the universe.
These hells seem terrible and startling; but did not
Jesus describe a more fearful place? He says he will
send forth his angels and ''gather all those who do in-
iquity, and cast them into a furnace of Hre, and there
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." The angels
shall sever the wicked from among the just, and shall
cast them into a furnace of Hre}^ The righteous shall
then shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their
father. In the Persian Bible the righteous pass to the
golden seat of the Lord.^^
This hell of Jesus seems to be more of a material hell
than the Iranian pit; for he speaks of "the gnashing of
teeth"; and a soul, or spirit, as we understand it, will
hardly have such things as teeth. Or does he mean that
he casts the material body, teeth and all, into the furnace
of fire? Now, a furnace of fire would soon reduce the
body, including the teeth, to dust and ashes. It is cer-
tainly noteworthy that the two heavens are exactly alike,
the hells only being dissimilar. But of the two hells, the
Persian is, by far, the more humane and merciful, for a
13 Matt. XIII, 42 to 50. See Deut. 32, 22, for the low-
est hell.
1* Vend. 19, 32.
102 THE RENOVATED WORLD
dark, stenchy place, however horrible, must be greatly
more tolerable than to roast in a furnace of fire.
Besides this, the later Persians believe that the world
will be renovated; that the metal in the hills will melt
and run like a river, and that all mankind, living and
dead, will pass into that metal for three days. To the
righteous, it will seem as if he were walking in warm
milk, but the wicked will suffer as though in seething
metal. By this process all evil thoughts and sins will
be purged from the souls, and they will become purified.
Even the stench and pollution of hell are wiped out.
There is no longer any sin ; for the sinners have become
righteous, deathless, and free from stain.
The Persian and the Jewish Bibles run close parallels
here, for Peter says our earth shall melt with fervent
heat; that the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved,
and the earth and all its works shall be burned up.^^
However this may be, the Persian dogma is much less
fiendish than that taught by St. John; for he says that
whoever is not found written in the book of life shall be
cast in to the lake of fire ; and he adds : *'he that is unjust,
let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be
filthy still; and if any man worships the beast (the
Devil) he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in
"^^ 2d Peter, ch. 3, v. 10. I write this down, not that I
believe that Peter and the authors of the Bundahis and
the Dadistin knew anything more about the renovation
of the world, or the melting of the metals, or that the
earth shall melt with fervent heat, than anybody of the
present day. Who told Peter and the Bundahis people
about those things?
TWO HELLS COMPARED 103
the presence of the angels and the Lamb ; and the smoke
of his torment ascendeth forever and ever.^^
The molten metal burned away the stain of sin from
the wicked Persian; but the Hebrew lake of fire failed,
and fails, to purge and cleanse the sinful Israelite.
The Persian gospel being much older than Matthew
and Revelation we may inquire: Did the writers of the
Hebrew text have before them the A vesta ; and did they
consider the Persian hell not sufficiently terrible; that,
therefore, they must add to its rigors ? Or, if we mistake
here, did the Bundahis and Dadistan writers have the
New Testament before them, and did they conclude
that a burning lake of fire and brimstone, and a furnace
of fire, forever and ever, were so fearfully horrid that
they ought to be mitigated, softened, and assuaged?
Did those Persian writers ask themselves: *Tf the Lord
of heaven, is filled with tender mercy, will he punish, so
fearfully, the sins and follies of man? Did they reason
with themselves that if God punishes the wicked in so
terrible a manner, he puts himself on a level with the de-
mons? For how could the fiends of hell do any worse
than to burn people in a furnace of fire, for all eternity?
If it be true that ''God's mercy is everlasting, then, why is
it that he hath no mercy on the hundreds of millions of
people who, according to the New Testament, are at this
moment being railroaded into hell, where they are burn-
ing in a lake of fire and brimstone, or roasting in a blaz-
ing furnace? The truth of this matter is that the ortho-
dox hell is so fearful and unreasonable that a generation
*® Rev., ch. 14, and Rev., ch. 22.
104 LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF ZOROASTER
hence only a few silly people will believe in it. The sensi-
ble ones, like Zoroaster, will insist that future punish-
ment, if there be any, is mental and not bodily. And
even this will be mitigated and softened to such a degree
that it will be seen that God's mercy does endure for-
ever ;^^ and that he will be merciful to the unrighteous,
and their sins and their iniquities ''He will remember no
more." ^^
1"^ One hundredth Psalm.
^^ 2d Hebrews, 8, I2.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ALLEGORY OF THE KINE. THE DOCTRINE OF
DUALISM.
Every tribe and every people in the infancy of the race
seems to have been freebooters, murderers and plunder-
ers. It is a sad commentary, made still more gloomy be-
cause it is true.
The stealing of herds and flocks, rapine and cruelty,
were not uncommon, down to a much later period than
Zoroaster. The Aryans, in the Prophet's day, we have
seen, were tillers of the soil; but they possessed numer-
ous herds of cattle; and these were strong allurements
to the Turanian robbers and plunderers. Marauding-
chiefs, with their armed followers, often made desolating
incursions against their honest neighbors. It was so in
Abraham's time ; they plundered Lot ; drove off his cat-
tle, and carried him away as a prisoner. The same law-
lessness prevailed in Zoroaster's day; but with keen in-
sight, he seized upon the forays and robberies, not only
to illustrate his doctrines, but to draw the people nearer
to his cause.
He composed an allegory: It was, in truth, an alle-
gory and something more. It was an eloquent, prayerful
protest, against cruelty, and especially against cruelty to
the cow, one of the chief means of honest support of
home and family. The wail of the kine becomes the
voice of the people, and cries out, "O Lord! for whom
105
106 THE CHOSEN LEADER
didst thou create me? The assaults of wrath, insolence
and violence encompass me about. None other can I
look to, but thee! Teach me the good tillage of my
fields" (that is, teach me the way of salvation). The
Creator, hereupon, asks Asha (Personified Righteous-
ness), "whom he had chosen to hurl back the fury of the
wicked ?" ^ Who is the chosen leader in this great battle
for righteousness, who can bring law, order, and peace?
Asha replies, ''that a leader who is himself without hate,
and who is able to smite back the fury of the evil-doers
cannot be obtained." And he adds, "that evil permeates
in some degree, all beings, but it is not permitted to be
known, even to the angels, why this is so." His reply is
tantamount to questioning why the Almighty, if all pow-
erful in heaven and on earth, does not at once and for-
ever abolish evil ?
On these matters the Prophet, somewhat yet in doubt,
but with hands outstretched in entreaty, prays Ahura,
that the righteous may not meet destruction with the
wicked. That is, that the robbers may first seize the
cattle and effects of the unbelievers; and that the right-
eous may have a blessing in being saved from pillage.
Religion, it is claimed, saves in the next world; but the
man who can save those Iranian flocks and herds will
thus assist the honest tillers of the soil. Such a man is
certain of leadership. Zoroaster, now, adroitly names
1 Asha is one of the Amshaspands of Archangels to do
and carry God's commands to the Iranians. God speaks
to Zoroaster on request. But he talks to Moses ( ?) with-
out asking.
TEACHINGS OF ZOROASTER 107
himself as a heaven-appointed leader, to protect the kine ;
that is, the people.^
There must have been objection to the Prophet by
some; for directly, Ahura says: "This man is found
for me here who, alone, has hearkened to my words. He
will announce my doctrines." ^
§ 2. Zoroaster, lamenting his feebleness, prays to
Ahura for wisdom and strength for his task, that he may
acceptably carry forward the purposes of heaven. But
he wages no war against the old Aryan Gods ; he simply
passes them by without mention. His purpose is to teach
his people to believe in Mazda, alone. Yet he begs the
Bountiful Immortals * to help on his cause, in both
worlds, the corporeal and spiritual, that the faithful may
finally reach the Holy Mount, and pass Kinvad Bridge,
to their happy reward.^
We see frequent and repeated mention in the Gathas
of the good mind, and the benevolent mind of God. In
fact, Yasna 23 is devoted by the Prophet to supplications
for grace; and that he may have wisdom to teach his
2 The record says (Yasna 29, §§ 5 and 6) the Lord ap-
pointed him ; but I take it that the Lord will never do
for man what he can do for himself.
3 Whether Ahura really did say this I do not know.
He probably said it in the same way and manner that
"The Lord said unto Moses."
^ Bountiful Immortals — the seven Amshaspands or
Archangels ; Vohumano, asha-Vahista, etc., etc.
^ This mention of the Holy Mount leads me to suspect
that these words in Yasna, 28; 5, are an interpolation;
for we shall see that Zoroaster's punishment was mental,
not physical.
108 WHY DOES EVIL EXIST
people, not what is best for time alone, but that which
will help them when the final rewards are given. He
sees evil in the world; the righteous in distress, often
wanting bread ; the wicked flourishing and ruling with a
high hand. Well might he exclaim "Defend me from
those who rise up against me. For lo! they He in wait
for my soul." ^ But he reasoned beyond this. His mind
is both observing and philosophical ; and seeing the just,
without apparent reason or cause, often in the toils of the
wicked, he asks : "Why is this?" If Ahura is a being of
infinite and Almighty power, why does he not strike
down evil, and end its reign? It is probable that gifted
minds before his day had asked the same question. How-
ever that may be, the Gathas, with his name, make the
earliest known record of it.
The question itself reaches back to Infinity ; to the very
beginning of things.
§ 3. Zoroaster saw this, and, impatient to know, asks
Ahura to teach him from his own spirit, that he may ex-
plain to his waiting people, by what laws the moral uni-
verse is governed.'^ Philosophers and thinkers, of all
ages and all nations, have since followed him in the vain
attempt to solve satisfactorily this mysterious problem.
Just how much time he gave to meditation upon this mat-
ter, and whether he debated it with his friends, or whether
it had been mooted before his day, we shall never know.
But the conclusion he reached has since been accepted and
followed by nearly all religions. Sometimes the copy is
« Ps. LIX.
^ Yasna 28, 12.
TWO PRIMEVAL SPIRITS 109
not exact, but the family resemblance is there in all of
them.
He announced that there were, and are, a pair of inde-
pendent primeval spirits: Ahura-Mazda, the good, and
Aharman, the bad. And he exclaims: "Hear me with
your ears ; it is a decision as to religions ; man for man,
each individually for himself. Between these two, let the
wisely-acting choose aright. Awake ye to the great
emergency. I pray that ye do not choose the evil." ^ He
now explains that when two spirits (not bodies) came
together "to make life and its absence," ^ and to deter-
mine the finality of things, the wicked were assigned or
given the worst life ; the holy, the best mental condition.
It is noteworthy that the wicked are not assigned to hell,
but to 'the worst life." Hell is not mentioned; furnaces
of fire, and lakes of fire, are later arrivals. No retribu-
tion or punishment for the wicked is here set forth, save
only the worst life. But when those spirits had finished,
each his part in creation, each chose his favorite realm.
Aharman, the evil-minded, chose the worst life; Ahura,
the more bounteous spirit, preferred righteousness.
Empedocles, a Greek philosopher, centuries later, fol-
lowed Zoroaster in this, although he named those forces
or spirits differently. He held that there are four pri-
mary divinities, or ultimate things: earth, air, fire and
water. That from these four divinities, or elements, all
organic and inorganic structures are produced. These
8 Yasna 30, §§2 and 3.
® This is a peculiar phrase : "to make life and its ab-
sence; it does not say death. Through envy of the devil,
death came. Wis. Solomon, ch. 2, v. 24.
no LOVE AND HATRED
four elements, he says, are eternally brought together,
and eternally separated, by two divine beings or powers.
Instead of naming them Ormazd and Aharman, he calls
them love and hatred, or good and bad. Love is the
attractive force ; hatred is repellent ; and these two forces
pervade the whole universe.
The different proportions, in which these four elements
are combined, determines the character of man and ani-
mals. The rocks in the mountains and the verdure of the
valleys are fixed by the same unvarying, eternal rule.
Who makes up this combination? That is the question.
If fixed by those powers, Love and Hatred, when and
where is the combination decided upon? Who rules, and
who overrules, in this matter? There is some love and
some hate in all men ; but in some men the elements of
love greatly predominate ; in others, hate seems to hold
full sway.
In Zoroaster, in Buddha, and in Jesus, love ruled them
and controlled them. It made their lives a fragrance.
In Arjasp, in Herod, in Nero, hate held them in her awful
grip to the last. Who mixed the ingredients that pro-
duced these widely differing characters? Did the God of
Love preside, or rule, when the first three were being
formed ; and did the God of Hate control, in the other
cases? Or are these divinities both present in all cases,
and mix their ingredients as best they can?
§ 4. The later writings of the Parsis have fixed up
another theory about this matter. They say that in the
beginning Mazda and Ahriman were both created by
Zerana Akerana, an all-wise, eternal, omniscient, absolute
being. That when created, Mazda and Ahriman were
both wise, sinless, and divine. That Mazda, by remaining
THE GREAT STRUGGLE 111
true to Zerana Akerana, became the God of the just ; but
Aharman, having proved false and treacherous, found
himself in endless darkness.^ ^ Instantly the great strug-
gle between these two master spirits began. The world
became one vast contending field of strife. The battle
still rages ; and the prize fought for is the soul of man.
The combat will not slacken until Mazda or Ahriman is
absolute victor. Milton's battle, in Paradise Lost, where
the angels and demons plucked the seated hills, with all
their loads, rocks, waters and woods, and hurled them at
each other, is but a sharply drawn picture of this world-
struggle between good and evil for the mastery .2
^ Fargard, 19, Vend., § 46, the Fravashi of Mazda is
worshipped. This would seem to sustain, slightly, the
theory of the text. See, also, Yast. 13, § 80, which holds
the same.
CHAPTER XII.
DUALISM FURTHER CONSIDERED.
§ I. If there really do exist two beings, or spirits, in
the world, called Ormazd and Ahriman (God and the
Devil), they are either created or uncreated beings. Now,
if they are uncreated spirits (that is, if they have existed
from all eternity), what right has the good spirit to slay
or kill the bad one, any more than a good man has to
slay or kill a bad man ? And the same rule applies if they
are created beings or spirits. Again, if they are, or were,
created by Zerana-Akerana, or some other superior being,
he must have created them for a purpose. Did he create
Ahriman on purpose to make a fuss, and, for a time, to
turn things upside down in the world, to be finally thrust
into a pit, or fiery lake? Or did He create him not
knowing that he would go astray? If so, He was not all-
wise. Or if He knew he would go astray, then He created
him for a bad purpose. Was it known to the "Great I
Am," in the beginning, that Ahriman would seduce many
from their allegiance to Ormazd? Who can answer?^
Perhaps he came from an infinitesimal nucleated cell,
and evolution carried him forward to his present *'bad
eminence." Perhaps, like Topsy, he "just growed." But,
that want and misery, and wickedness and sin are here,
cloven-footed, none will deny. Theologians, for hundreds
1 See §3, chap. 15.
112
TWO CREATORS 113
of years, have strenuously tugged with this question;
but they have not gone a single step beyond the Persian
prophet. He tells us in a sentence, that ''two spirits came
together to make life and life's absence." 2 Farvardin
Yast says that ''two spirits, the good one and the evil one,
created the world," ^ and that Ahriman ''broke into the
creation of the good." Even Genesis shadows forth two
or more personages at creation; for God said, "Let us
make man in our image; after our likeness." (Genesis i,
XXVI.) Moreover, after Adam had eaten of the for-
bidden fruit, God said, "Behold the man is become as one
of us; to know good and evil." (Genesis 3, 22.) Do
those words indicate a plurality of Gods, at the Creation ;
or was God soliloquizing? Was the Persian devil there,
gifted with the power of speech, talking to Eve, in the
form of a serpent; but not yet crawling on his belly, for
he had not yet been cursed by the Lord ?* In the Persian
mythology he is the creator of evil; in our mythology,
he is the polluter, or destroyer of the good.
"My garments," said Aharman, "are dark, evil
thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds, are my food, and /
love those whose thoughts, words and deeds are evil."'^
How, then, let us ask, if the Evil One is gifted with, or
possesses the faculty of love, can he punish those he
wins or loves? Will any being, good or bad, injure or
2Yas. 30, §4,Vol. 31, S. B. E.
3 Yas. 13, § 76, Vol. 23, S. B. E., p. 198.
^ The serpent while talking with Eve must have stood
on his tail for he did not have to "go on his belly" until
after the Lord cursed him. (Genesis 3, 14.)
5 Dink B. 9, ch. 30, § 6.
114 WAR BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
punish those he loves? The logic of the churches is, that
God punishes the wicked, because ''He is angry with them
every day." ^ But, if he sends them to Hell, will not
Satan make it easy on them, because he loves them?'''
In reply to these words of Ahriman, Ozmazd says, "The
sky is my garment ; good thoughts, words, and deeds, are
my food; I love those whose thoughts, words and deeds
make for righteousness."
Whether true or false, this is dualism ; plain and simple ;
and this shifting, or carrying back Ormazd and Aharman,
to their Creator, does not dispose of it. If they possess
full rein, without hindrance, what matters it to man,
whether Zerana-Akerana exists or not? However, the
Great Iranian does not stop to argue about zerana-
Akerama. He finds the demons of wrath, contending with
Ormazd, for the love and allegiance of man ; and Ormazd
leads in the battle for the good.
§ 2. This matter of dualism, however, cannot be dis-
posed of by a simple waiver of the hand. If you say that
evil (Aharman) is only a principle, and not a personality,
then it may be replied, that this principle possesses most
extraordinary vitality. If Aharman is simply a principle,
that principle is so active, combative and real that it
exhibits all the traits, characteristics and qualities, though
of an opposite character, to those possessed by Ormazd.
If it be said that Ahura is an actual, living, spiritual
existence, how can it be claimed that he is waging a
^Psalms 7, ii. But he does not stay angry only a
moment. Psalms 30, 5.
■^ If Satan should do this, would not the Lord be frus-
trated, or outflanked?
THE DEVIL AS A LINGUIST 115
ceaseless conflict against Ahriman, a non-existent or noth-
ing? Is he waging battle against empty space?
Was it a principle only that met Ormazd to "make life
and its absence?" Was it a principle that approached
those Iranians, and asked them to choose himf ^
Battle presupposes a conflict between opposing and con-
tending forces. Living, existent spirits do not wage war,
as we believe, against non-existent things. A syllogism
would run thus : He who wages a conflict must have an
opponent to contend against. Ormazd is waging battle.
Therefore he has an opponent, which he is contending
against.
The Iranian Bible makes frequent and repeated men-
tion of this evil spirit. Zoroaster names him as a demon
God; as the Worst Mind; as the Demon of Wrath; as
the Demon of Falsehood ; as the Harmful Lie ; as the Lie
Demon, and as the Evil Spirit.
The Jewish Bible is full, from Genesis to Revelations,
about the serpent, and satan, and the Devil ; the Tempter,
Beelzebub, the Dragon, etc. Those devils of Iran and of
Israel seem to be expert linguists. They understand the
languages of the peoples. For the Jew Devil talks
Aaramaic to Jesus ; ^ and Satan, when he wants to afflict
Job, speaks Hebrew to the Lord.^*^
Was it simply a principle or an actuality that took Jesus
"up into the Holy City ?" Was it a principle that offered
to bribe him, when the Devil took him up ''into an
* Yasma 30, § 6.
9 Matthew, ch. 4.
10 Job, ch. I.
116 NUMEROUS DEVILS
exceedingly high mountain?" ^^ How is this? At one
of Zoroaster's gatherings, while the people were debating
whether they would accept his religion, or hold to their
old Gods, the Worst Mind came, that ''he might be
chosen"; and he won; for, ''thereupon, they rushed to-
gether unto the Demon of Fury." ^ 2 g^^- those Iranians,
while not approved for rushing over to the Demon of
Fury, were hardly as wicked as the Jews, who "sacrificed
unto Devils and not to God." ^^ They went beyond that;
they sacrificed 'their sons and their daughters unto Dev-
ils." ^^ Even the Lord himself (if the record be not false)
made use of a lying spirit to get Ahab slain.^^ The Lord
found Satan standing by Zachariah and an angel, and
the Lord rebuked Satan. We might ask how the millions
of other worlds all around our own were progressing
while the Lord was there talking to Satan? A similar
observation might be made when the Lord gave Zoroaster
an audience.
§ 3. This idea of a personal devil has been long in the
world. It has traveled far. It has crossed mountains and
seas. It has invaded nation after nation, until every land
in the whole earth has its devil. The New Testament
caught the infection from the Persians and the Old Testa-
ment, and pictures this monster with cloven hoofs, with
horns, and with hideous features. Children see pictures
of his Satanic Majesty to this day. Holy writ tells us that
11 Matthew 4.
i2Yasma 30, §6.
13 Deuteronomy 32, 17.
1^ Psalms 106, V. 37.
1^ 1st Kings 22, V. 22.
IF THERE WERE NO DEVIL f 117
when this devil is caught, and locked in the bottomless pit,
he can only be kept there one thousand years, and then he
must be turned loose.^^ How are the nations to rid them-
selves of this engorged fiend, when pulpit and press main-
tain that "the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seek-
ing whom he may devour" ?^^ Suppose Satan should die,
would the churches wither? Suppose this hateful myth,
or being, should beat a retreat, with all his battalions, and
withdrew from the earth, and make a tour of some of
the other of the millions of worlds around us, would
Christianity collapse? No, it would not collapse. It
would sing a song of victory. What else would follow?
Our literature would have to be reformed. Our ideas of
business would have to be reformed. Many of our laws
would be useless. In fact, we should scarcely need any
laws. Justice and mercy, sympathy and love, would so
prevail "that the world would be restored." ^^ Eden would
be regained, the Millennial Year would be at our very
doors. Is this a wild dream?
Now, who is to blame that this Elysium of Bliss is kept
from us ? Who must be charged with getting a personal
devil into our Bibles, into our thoughts, into our literature,
into our very lives ? The answer is not far to be sought.
For if there be not, truly, a personal devil, active in the
affairs of the world, if all our ideas about this evil one
are merely creatures of the imagination, then our old ac-
quaintance, Zoroaster, must be charged with all the mis-
chief. But, if there truly exists an active wicked spirit in
1^ Rev., ch. 20, V. 3.
i*^ 1st Peter, ch. 5, v. 8.
18 Yast 19, § 90, S. B. E., Vol. 23.
118 THE UNDER WORLD
the world, polluting the lives of men, then this great Ira-
nian teacher and preacher is entitled to the patent of dis-
covery. He taught it to the Persians, and he taught it
persistently and effectively. He hammered it into their
very lives. He told them that there were two master
spirits, or Gods, in the world, Ahura-Mazda, and Ahar-
man.^^ That Mazda was the God of righteousness, that
his thoughts were good ; that he ought to be worshipped
for his goodness ; that he was beneficent, and that he loved
man. That Ahura was the good mind that spoke within
the soul; that he would give weal and immortality to all
such as followed his commands ; that his home was in the
endless light, and that all his followers would find that
blissful seat. In truth he promised a never-ending life of
heavenly bliss to the just. All of Aharman's thoughts,
words and deeds, he said, were evil ; his worshippers were
seeds from the evil Mind ; that sin binds a heavy penance
upon them ; that there is a long wounding for the wicked,
and the blow of destruction would surely fall upon them.^^
Their home, he said, would be in silent darkness. In short,
he pictured a hell for them ; but there was no fire or brim-
stone in his hell. It was a place of darkness, a gloomy
abode in the under world.
§ 4. These two spirits or Gods were creative each in
his own realm. Anaxagoras and Plato, many centuries
later, followed Zoroaster in this, except that they said
there were in nature two principles — one active and one
passive. How was Zoroaster led into this line of reason-
^^ This compound word, Ahura-Mazda, was afterwards
abridged to Ormazd. I write it either way.
20 Yasma 30 and 31, Vol. 31, S. B. E.
JEWS FOUND THEIR DEVIL IN BABYLON 119
ing? Unquestionably it was because he saw so much in-
justice, sin, suffering and evil all about him, and he could
account for these things only as the work of an evil deity.
He had not read Isaiah, chapter 45, where God says : "I
create evil."^^ He reasoned that Ahura was merciful,
sympathetic and loving, and that he would, if he had the
power, abolish this sorrow and suffering at one swoop
and forever. This line of reasoning, he supposed, relieved
Ahura, a just God, from all responsibility in the matter.
Whether this doctrine be true or false, Iran believed in
it, adopted it, fought it, and spread it from the Oxus to
Media, where it was likewise approved and became the
national belief. From Media it traveled west to Babylon.
Here this duality-doctrine about the year 597 B. C. met
Nebuchadnezzar, a conquering King returning from the
overthrow of Jerusalem. The fallen King, and Ezekiel,
and Ezra, and Jedediah, and Daniel, and thousands of the
principal citizens of the captive city were prisoners in the
King's train. They were kept in bondage for a long gen-
eration — nearly seventy years. Their priests and scribes
meanwhile studied Zoroaster's doctrine of a good and
evil God. They embraced it. Perhaps they could ac-
count for their captivity in no other way than that an evil
God had delivered them into the hands of their enemies.
When Cyrus 22 finally sent them back to their native
land they carried Zoroaster's theology with them. Angels
and devils at once appear in the Hebrew Bible.
21 *T form the light and create darkness ; I make peace
and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things." Isaiah,
ch. 45 ; 7.
22 If Cyrus was the anointed of the Lord, the Lord
120 EZEKIEL'S VISION
Daniel, on the banks of Ulai,^^ has a vision of the angel
Gabriel, similar to Zoroaster's on the banks of the Daitu,
where he meets Vohu-mano, except that Daniel was
frightened at the apparition, and fell down flat on his face,
but Zoroaster did not flinch, although Vohu-mano seemed
to be forty-nine feet tall. Daniel, also, seems to have been
impressed with Zoroaster's doctrine of the resurrection,
for in chapter 12 he makes explicit mention of it. In the
second verse of that chapter we read, ''that many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con-
tempt." At that time Michael, Jewish angel, will stand
up, and there will be a time of trouble, but every one shall
be "delivered who is found written in the Book."
§ 5. Ezekiel, another of the exiles, while yet in Baby-
lon, has a vision of a valley full of dry bones. They are
the bones of exiles who have perished there. He hears
a noise, and a shaking of the bones, and they come togeth-
er, bone to bone, and flesh comes upon them, and skin
covers them, and breath comes to them, and they live and
stand upon their feet. And the Lord said to Ezekiel:
*Trophesy and say : 'the Lord will open your graves and
bring you into the land of Israel, and will put his spirit
into you, and will place you in your own land.' " ^4
uses some miserable wretches to accomplish his ends.
For Cyrus was cruel and barbarous. He murdered his
prisoners; some of them by burning.
23 See Vol. 47, S. B. E., ch. 3, of Book 7, p. 48; Daniel,
ch. 8, V. 16.
24 Ezekiel, ch. 37, v. i to 14. This was soothing to
those poor exiles, but none of them ever came up out of
their graves.
EZEKIEUS RESURRECTION 121
We observe that Ezekiel is specific about the manner of
the resurrection. He goes into details about it, whereas
Zoroaster tells us that the souls of the righteous shall
have safe passage across Kinvad Bridge.^^
The great Iranian does not teach the resurrection of the
body. He is entirely silent about it. What is said in sec-
tion three, chapter nine, is a later doctrine from the Ven-
didad.26 Zoroaster says: "I am delivering up my mind
and soul to reach the heavenly Mount,-^ whither all the
redeemed must pass." He sees that if the soul passes
the Bridge in safety, it has reached the home of the Good
Mind. It is in heaven. It would, therefore, need no res-
urrection. Nowhere in Zoroaster's teachings does he an-
nounce that the soul goes into the grave. Job said:
'When I go to the land of darkness, and the shadow of
death, I shall not return." ^s Qf course no sensible person
believes that after his body goes into the grave it will ever
come forth again. Why should it come forth? It goes
down into the grave, blasted by age, or eaten by disease,
or torn in battle, or wrecked by -some of the thousand
calamities that befall the race. If the body be resurrected
it must be the same that went into the grave. Was not
the vision of Ezekiel simply a happy consolation, offered
by the poet to those suffering exiles, that although their
bodies might be buried in Babylon yet the God of their
2^ See ch. lO, § i, ante as to Kinvad Bridge.
26 Westengard's fragments, in the Vend., p 247 : The
Bundahis followed Ezekiel as to the resurrection of the
bodies.
27 Mount Alborz, at the heavenly end of the Bridge.
Seech. 28, §5,Vol. 31, S. B. E.
28 Job X, 21.
122 NO JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
Fathers would bring them up out of their graves and
take them back to "their own, their native land"?
The Persian did not teach justification by faith, but
that every man was his own Saviour. That good
thoughts, good words and good deeds would land every
soul safely in the home of the Good Mind.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE IRANIAN BELIEF: IT LEADS TO A DIVISION OF SENTI-
MENT, THREATENING WAR. ZOROASTEr's PRAYERS.
§ I. In the Persian belief there was no remission of
sins. Every man made his own atonement for his own
offenses. His sins were, as we have seen, charged up
against him, but it was in his power to overbalance them
by good thoughts, words and deeds. He knew nothing
about salvation by faith. God would give him blessings
in His Holy Realm *'in reward for good deeds." ^ No
Saviour up to Zoroaster's time had ever died for the Per-
sians. Thus each one by himself, and for himself, with-
out any intercessor, fixed his own destiny. He worked
out "his own salvation" himself, and thus made expiation
for his own misdeeds.
Zoroaster did not teach his people, as did Moses the
Jews,2 to catch two goats and cast lots upon them, one
for the Lord and one for the Scape-Goat, and upon the
goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, sacrifice him for
their sins. The other goat, with the sins of all the people
on its poor head, was thrust forth into the wilderness.
It is possible, nay, it is highly probable, that if those
Iranians had heard of Aaron and his goats they would
have occasionally roasted one and thus have made the
1 Yas. 43, § i6. Vol. 31, S B. E.
2 Leviticus, ch. 16, v. 5 to 10.
123
124 SIN'S PENALTY
passage across Kinvad Bridge not only easy but an abso-
lute certainty.
A vastly different doctrine was, however, taught them.
They were told that ''the smallest sin brings its penalty." ^
that this doctrine, unheard of before, would deliver the
people from the Lie-Demon.
It was an indubitable truth, but it was a question which
concerned the soul. *'0, ye listening men," exclaimed the
Prophet. ''Let not a man of you lend a hearing to the
evil-doers. And ye vile, long life shall be your lot in
darkness." "* But Ahura will give both weal and immor-
tality to the Righteous order. "To the wise," he added,
"these things are clear."
The promulgation of these doctrines provoked so great
a strife, and it raged so fiercely, that Zoroaster found
himself like Paul, not only wrestling against flesh and
blood but against principalities and powers. The chief
men in high places became implacable foes.
He who would not reclaim his life, he who would de-
spoil the honest tiller of his herds and flocks, he who
would give ear to the Lie-Demon, against such he urged
his followers "to fly to arms and hew them all with the
halberd." It was not only a spiritual warfare but an
actual hand-to-hand conflict that confronted the seer and
his followers. His enemies were offering devotions to a
false religion, and if they secured power would deliver
home, village and province to ruin and death. All such
3 Yasna 31, § i and § 13.
4 Yasna 31, §§ 20, 21 and 22. Darkness is not as ter-
rible as to burn.
GOOD AND EVIL CLASH EVERYWHERE 125
were seeds of the Evil Mind, and their deceits are found,
he said, in all the seven zones of the earth.
§ 2. With what words the opponents of Zoroaster an-
swered this severe arraignment we are not told. We can,
however, infer that these charges were met by counter-
charges which were fast leading up to blood. One Yima
Vivanghusha is pointed out as an evil teacher, a wretched
being, full of crime, who was perverting the minds of the
people. This man, Zoroaster declares, is filled with deceit
and is scheming to establish the Kavis (idolaters) in
power. Thus he would destroy the religion of the faith-
ful.
Although a warrior of note, "wielding a glittering
blade of iron," ^ he yet was of that pestiferous class found
in all ages who will stoop to open bribery to gain advan-
tages where force cannot prevail. But this did not abate
the great reformer's zeal, for he threatens to yet drive
hence the Kavis or Karpans and their followers.
Long after this, in a distant land, a similar scene was
enacted between Elijah, the prophet, and Ahab, the wick-
ed King of Israel. In both cases the prophets and their
adherents prevail. Ahab is slain, and the Karpans, after
a long struggle, as we shall see, were also overcome. But
not until the idolaters, in both Iran and in Israel, were
put down did the troubles of the faithful cease. This
threat to drive the Karpans hence exhibits a plain phase
of Zoroaster's character. He is not only religious, but he
is stubbornly religious. He is willing to fight for his
religion rather than yield it. Hence, to visit vengeance
6 Yas. 32, § 7.
126 FEARLESS FOR THE RIGHT
upon evil-doers was not thought to be inconsistent with
his duty or his religion.
He saw that the Karpans were even then planning open
hostilities against him and his followers, and, not possess-
ing the gentle, non-combative spirit of the Man of Galilee,
he would oppose them with force. Less cruel than Moses
and Joshua, for they were murderers and plunderers ; ®
his religion allowed him the easy latitude of all subse-
quent religions. He abjured evil, but the Lord had ''not
given him the spirit of fear." "^ In the same breath in
which he besought Ahura for blessings on the Kine (the
people) he denounced his enemies with unsparing tongue.
While this is true^ it must be said of him that he was the
very buttress of the whole religious arch, and with his
absence or death his great reform would have dwindled,
withered and fallen. He knew this, and he knew also that
his arch-enemy, Yima Vivanghusha, was able at any mo-
ment to hurl his mace at him ^ and forever end his career.
Paul suffered in prison for years because of the religion
he taught ; Zoroaster, centuries before Paul's day, became
not only a *'gazing-stock" for the wicked, ^ but finally
gave his life in the cause of his people. Both of these
^ Moses caused all the Midianites to be murdered, ex-
cept the little girls, who were kept for a shameful pur-
pose. Ch. 31, Numbers. Moses also murdered the Egyp-
tian; Exodus, ch. 2, V. II and 12. Joshua plundered
Jericho and murdered all the people, both young and old,
except a harlot. Joshua, ch. 6, and he did the same with
the city of Ai, Joshua, ch. 8.
■^ 2d Timothy, ch. i, v. 7.
s Yas. 32, § 10.
9 Hebrews, ch. 10, v. 33.
RELIGIOUS WARS 127
men were great moral heroes who sought the betterment
of the race.
§ 3. A religious war in Iran was impending, and like
all religious wars since the dawn of history, it was to be
cruel and desolating. It was preceded by persecutions and
lawlessness, and perhaps murders, of which we know but
little. If Zoroaster had named one of his devils the De-
mon of Intolerance ; that fiend would have been aptly des-
ignated, for Intolerance, if it be not a demon; this may
be alleged against it. It has reddened many a field; its
victims fill millions of graves. In fact, in some quarters
of the globe, even at the present day, it rears its monster
head. It was numberless ages before any herald appeared
proclaiming 'Teace on earth, and good will to man." And
if the angels really did bring those sweet words from the
skies, mankind has not very diligently pondered them.
Zoroaster was not heralded by any such heaven-born
sentiment. He lived back nearer to the birth of the race,
and, therefore, in a more cruel period. The spread of his
gospel, like all new faiths or beliefs, wherever it reached,
called forth discussion, opposition and controversy. It
went beyond this and culminated in open war. The gos-
pel of Galilee, a thousand years and more after its great
founder perished, brought upon the land of its birth in-
vasions and wars as cruel as any that ever devastated the
earth. No mortal struggle ever surpassed in fierceness
and hate, the religious wars of the Crusaders. In truth,
a religious war, seems filled to the brim with malice and
all the dregs of evil. It was the same in this war waged
against the religion taught by the great Persian. And in
128 ZOROASTER'S PRAYER
order to be successful in the impending strife each party
invoked the higher Powers, for help.^^
§ 4. Zoroaster's Prayer : "This I ask of Thee, O,
Ahura ! that thou wilt send mighty destruction among our
enemies. Wilt Thou deliver the Lie-Demon and his fol-
lowers into the hands of the Righteous Order? O, Lord!
when the two hosts shall meet, to which of the two wilt
Thou give the day ? Lord, we smite for the protection of
Thy doctrines. Draw near with Thy good mind and sup-
port those who strive for weal and immortality. Tell us,
O Lord ! how we may proceed to that consummation. And
to our deluded foes, the daeva-worshippers, have they
ever reigned worthily? The Karpans (heretics) are given
to rapine and slaughter. They are of the Lie-Demon, and
have never brought waters to the fields of the Righteous
Order. They have never given tribal wealth or blessings
to the Kine. They are recreant to Thy Law. O, Lord !
knowing well their doom at last, let Thy conquering ho^ts,
with gifts of Grace, triumph in the coming strife. Who
but Thee hath sustained the earth from beneath}'^ and the
clouds above, that they do not fall ? Who but Thee holds
^^ It was the same in our civil war, when I was in the
army forty-three years ago. Our chaplains were wont to
pray fervently for the defeat and destruction of our ene-
mies. And the confederate divines (as I have since heard
and read) put up equally fervent petitions to the Almighty
for our defeat. Suppose they could have mustered a few
more battalions, would the Lord have heard them? We
know that ''time and chance happeneth to all." Eccle.
9, II-
1* He had not yet learned that the earth is round, and
that there is no ''heneath" to it.
VISTASPA'S SACRIFICES 129
the sun and the stars in their course ? Who but Thee, O,
Great Creator ! yokes the storm-clouds to the winds ? O,
Ahura, Lord ! use us, Thy people, as instruments to keep
those deceitful and those harsh oppressors from reaching
their aims. Let, O, Lord, that holy faith and piety, which
are of all things best, go hand in hand. And in the final
striving, for the sake of Thy Righteous Order, may Thy
Grace prevail." ^^
If we were to follow the later Avesta we would see
Vistaspa offering sacrifices of one hundred horses, one
thousand oxen, and ten thousand lambs, with libations
that he might overcome, in battle, Tatherevant, of the
bad law ; that he might put to flight AstaAurvant, of the
brazen helmet ; and that he might slay the Hyonian mur-
derer, Arjasp; that he might slay the Hyonians by the
hundreds, by the thousands, and by the myriads.^ ^ Hus-
ravh, he who united the Aryan clans into a kingdom, and
others of the faith offered similar sacrifices, and begged
the boon that he might kill the Iranian murderers.**
Perhaps they had heard of Exodus, where none must
appear before the Lord empty handed.
§ 5. But this praying and sacrificing was not *^ all
done by the Aryans, for the same record sets forth that
12 I have here given the substance of the Prophet's peti-
tion, which runs through Yasma 44, Vol. 31, S. B. E.
13 Gos Yast, § 29 and § 30; also Aban Yast, § 108 and
§ 109, Vol. 2:^, S. B. E. but these Yasts are of a later
period than Zoroaster. They, however, have crept into
his history.
14 Exodus, ch. 23, V. 15. None must appear before the
Lord empty handed.
1^ This later Avesta was written after the days of Zoro-
130 HERETICS OFFER SACRIFICES
the Turanians, Arjasp and his brother, Vandariman, of-
fered up sacrifices of one hundred horses, a thousand
oxen, and ten thousand lambs to Arda Sura Ananita (the
goddess of waters) and besought the boon that they
might conquer Vistaspa and his army, and that they might
smite the Aryan people by hundreds, by the thousands,
and by the myriads.^^
It is possible that these sacrifices were offered, but
Zoroaster does not mention them, nor does it appear in
the Gathas that he offered any. The Gathas are mostly
made up of exhortations and prayers, including some
sharp denunciations of the wicked.^ ^
The Prophet, instead of killing oxen and lambs to gain
the favor of the Almighty, falls on his knees : "Tell me,
O Lord ! the end, for Thou dost know. Tell me, O Thou
Good Mind ! and thus increase my strength and courage
before the encounter comes. Tell me, Lord ! the future of
aster, yet these sacrifices may have been offered, for the
whole world was then likewise engaged. Solomon, we
know (2 Chron., ch. 7), offered up 22,000 oxen and 120,-
000 sheep at the dedication of his temple, a building in no
wise extraordinarily large or beautiful.
^^ These Turanians were a barbarous, warlike people,
who lived near the southern extremity of the Caspian.
Their place in history is somewhat indistinct. Some schol-
ars believe their home was not far from the Jihun (Oxus).
Others identify them with the Hyonians or Chionites, and
locate them west of the Caspian.
^"^ Balak, king of the Moabites, also sacrificed that he
might conquer Israel. Did Balak learn this from Arjasp,
or had Arjasp heard of Balak, and did he follow him?
The sacrifices are verv similar.
ZOROASTER PRAYS AGAIN 131
the struggle. I will hope and pray, though I know not
the issue. But, O Lord, let not the evil gain the day, but
in accordance with Thy will, let the righteous prosper and
rule. They will grant us pleasing homes while we live.^^
Do Thou, O Lord, let the demon of rapine be cast down.
We hold fast to our sacred refuge in Thee. Thy strug-
gling servant, with changing lot, who toils for Thy King-
dom, how shall he beseech Thee for victory? What is
the potent prayer to bring on the Holy reign ? How shall
I seek to spread Thy Righteous Order while I live?
May Piety ever be present, and may she, through the
indwelling of the Good Mind (Holy Spirit), give us bless-
ings in reward for our struggles in Thy cause." ^^
Is not this idea uppermost in all our prayers and in all
our religions? We want a quid-pro-quo, an equivalent,
for all we say and do for the Lord. We do not thank
Heaven for life. We came without our asking. We shall go
hence without our requesting. We come; we go; we
ebb ; we flow ; and that great mysterious Ocean, called
Time, swallows us up and we are not.
Did that something, which we call soul or mind (for
they are inseparable), live beyond the struggle which
shortly laid the Prophet's body in the grave? That is
the question. Who can answer ? No one hath come back
to tell us.
1^ The reader will notice all along that the Turanians
seem to be free-booters and plunderers. The righteous,
as Zoroaster calls them, were law-abiding.
19 Yasna 43, §§ 14 to 16, and Yasna 48, Vol. 31,
S. B. E.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BATTLE. DEFEAT OF IRAN. THE ARMIES. BENDVA
AND THE PROPHET. THE KARPANS. THEIR MISDEEDS.
It is probable that before any contest arose with the
surrounding tribes or nations about the new reHgion there
were many sharp controversies among and between the
people of Iran. Blood flowed at Jerusalem and there-
abouts before the Gospel reached any foreign land. Even
one of Jesus* friends smote the ear from off a disbeliever.^
There were envyings and strifes, and divisions rag-
ing among the elect.^ No doubt Zoroaster saw the same
divisions and strifes in his own ranks. The unbelievers
were denounced as heretics, as enemies, and as the seed
of the Evil Mind. But those very disputes, in Bactria, or
wherever they occurred, served only to publish far and
wide the faith and creed of the Prophet.
It did not, therefore, fall still-born ; they talked about
it; there was much wagging of tongues; much shaking
of heads. There were believers and disbelievers. Even
Jesus' brothers did not believe in him.^ And he was
obliged to remain for a season in Galilee, lest the Jews
might kill him.
In the more desperate and savage times of the Persian
he, without question, ran many such chances. He stood,
1 Matt., ch. 26, V. 51. •
2 1st Corinthians, ch. 3, v. 3.
3 St. John, ch. 7, V. 5.
132
THE WAR OF THE RELIGIONS 133
as it were, upon the outer battlement, conspicuous, defy-
ing all the Goliaths of the Turanians. And he stood thus
for more than fifty years.*
The storm, long gathering, was about to break. Arjasp,
the Turanian leader, was marching an army to invade
Iran.
It has been said that the cause of this war was the
failure of Vistaspa to continue to pay Arjasp the tribute
agreed upon as the result of a former war. Possibly this
may have been mixed up in the controversy, yet the great
moving cause of the struggle was the differing religions.
In fact, this war was called 'The War of the Religions." ^
The battle resulted in a sore defeat to the Iranians,
and if the improbable story of the Bundahis be true, they
were only saved from destruction by a part of a mountain
breaking loose and sliding down into the plain, thereby
sheltering them from their victorious enemies. The Ira-
nians call this mountain Mount Madofryad, which means
"come to help". Zachariah says that the Mount of Olives
shall cleave in the midst thereof, and half of the moun-
tain shall remove toward the South, and half toward the
North. Did he copy, or did the Iranians ? ^
The exact location of this battle cannot be stated. It
may have been far down on the borders of Afghanistan,
or it may have been nearer Bactria. But it is certain that
the Iranians were routed,"^ for Zoroaster, to encourage his
4 Ch. 23, § 8, Vol. 47, S. B. E.
s Bund., ch. 12, § 33 ; see also ch. 4, § yy, Vol. 47,
S. B. E.
^ Zachariah, ch. 14, v. 4.
' Bund., ch. 12, speaks of "come to help", as the place
134 EXTRAVAGANT NUMBERS IN BATTLE
followers, tells them that though the battle is lost all is
not yet lost.^ Mazda, he said, would yet save and protect
them against their unbelieving foes.
§ 2. If the Shah-Nama, founded upon extravagant
and careless tradition, has given the numbers of the con-
tending forces correctly, then there were potent causes
for Iran's defeat, for her 144,000 were met by Arjasp with
300,000.^ But these numbers seem wild and improbable,
for if this battle, with such numbers, was fought even as
late as six hundred years B. C. there would be some men-
tion of it in history outside of the Avesta and works
copied from it.
On the other hand, if Zoroaster's period is back fifteen,
or even ten centuries before Jesus' day, no such Turanian
force could be assembled, nor could the Iranians put their
alleged one hundred and forty-four thousand into the
field. Arjasp was simply a border-chief, and his army
did not, probably, reach one-tenth of the numbers above
mentioned.
Now, an army of twenty thousand ^^ men and four
thousand horses for a campaign of four months would
require about six thousand tons of food and forage. Those
Turanians were invading an hostile country, and not a very
where Vistaspa routed Arjasp, but the same text says
there was confusion among the "Iranians" and they
were saved as above stated. If the mountains had to save
them, kow could they be victorious?
8 Yasna 49, §§ 3, 4 and 5.
^ The Shah Nama mentions that Vistasp was in Bactra
when he received envoys from Arjasp about the tribute.
1^ My experience in our civil war leads me to flatly
controvert the wild statement of the Zartust-Nama.
THE WAVERING DESERT HIM 135
fertile one at that. It is simply impossible that they could
transport supplies for three hundred thousand men.
§ 3. Benda, another border chief, who had ever op-
posed the Prophet and his religion, about this time gained
such an advantage that there was much wavering among
Zoroaster's followers. The Prophet himself says : "Band-
va is most powerful and v/ould crush my strength while
I seek to mn back the disaffected." ^^ In truth, he even
caused Zoroaster to hesitate, and ponder, whether his
course of reform was the wisest that could be adopted.
Whether Bendva assisted Arjasp in gaining, the victory
above mentioned is not certain, but it is not improbable
that the two forces acted together, for both of those lead-
ers were seeking the same end, namely, the overthrow of
Zoroaster and his doctrines.
Religion, whenever necessary to gain its ends, has
never scrupled to use the torch and the sword. Moses
and Joshua, in the name of the Lord, burned cities and
slew the people thereof with a fiendishness and savagery
never yet surpassed.^^ Even while I write these lines
the armies of the world are in China making war on the
people there. Religion and plunder are at the bottom of
the whole thing.
In religion, a thesis or creed is announced, and woe be
to the man who controverts it. Bendva, no doubt, be-
11 Yasma 49, §1.
1 2 Moses sent his armed men against the Midianites
and destroyed them. Numbers 31. He also drove out
the Amorites and took Bashan. Numbers, ch. 21 ; 32 and
33. See Joshua, ch. 6 and 8, where the people of Ai and
Jericho perished.
136 KARPANS WERE PLUNDERERS
longed to that class who held to the old faith. Perhaps
one of his main objections to the new creed was that there
were not two primeval creative spirits or beings.^ ^ He
may have antagonized the Prophet on the ground that
there was no such crossing or place as the Kinvad Bridge.
He may have ridiculed the idea that there was an evil
God. He may have held to the doctrine of the Sadducees
that there is no resurrection of the dead. Whatever that
old belief was, he was willing to fight a battle to maintain
it. Evidently it was a full-fledged creed with numerous
followers. But if the inquiry be made, what was that
old faith? No exact, explicit answer can be given. We
search in vain for a single direct statement of what it
was, and can only gather an idea of it, here and there, by
what the Prophet alleges against it.
§ 4. We know that good thoughts, words and deeds
are the foundations of the Zoroaster structure, and we
reason that Bendva, Arjasp and the Turanians must have
held to the contrary.
Repeatedly the Prophet charges that the Karpans are
destroyers ; that they neither bring harvests to the fields,
nor food to the Kine. That their teachings and deeds
lead to the House of the Lie, bringing only woe and deso-
lation.14
Of this we may be reasonably certain, the Karpans were
not friendly to the tillers of the soil ; for the Prophet cries
out : "O, Great Creator ! I ask of Thee two blessings for
Thy followers. Grant Thy protection over our gathered
wealth, and give us those spiritual blessings promotive of
13 See Dualism, ch XI, § 3.
14 Yas. 51, §§ 12 to 15.
ZOROASTER'S DUALISM 137
our worship of Thee. I speak for all who are guided by
Thy Law. Yea, I cry aloud to Thee, for all these assem-
bled here. And they ask : Where is the Lord ? Will He
show us mercy, and save us from these dreaded dangers ?
It is the tiller of the earth who asks this of Thee, O,
Ahura".
The Prophet himself says he asks all this that he may
discover how he can gain to himself the Sacred Kine;
that is, the love and help of the people. Now, if the Kar-
pans did not, or would not, cultivate the fields, but de-
stroyed the fruitage thereof, and plundered the herds, then
here is a plain dividing line between "the two striving
sides" ; Zoroaster being a strong tower of defense against
these misdeeds. We have here the manifest reason why
the miscreants sought to destroy his life.^^
There is nowhere an explanation or denial of these
serious charges against the Karpans, and the inquiry
arises : Whence came the instigation for these misdeeds ?
Was old Aharman (the devil) right there urging them
on, or is man prone to evil ? I know that Isaiah, in chap-
ter 45, says : "The Lord created evil" ; and Job, in chap-
ter 2d, hints the same way. But I question whether the
Lord really did create evil. Is it not rather inherent in the
very nature of things? Or is Zoroaster's dualism, or
theory of a good God, and an evil one correct ? The reader
can make his choice.
^5 Yas. 51, §§ 2 to 12. Yas. 31, § 3, has it, "two bat-
tling sides."
CHAPTER XV.
SECOND BATTLE. VISTASPA's VICTORY. THE SPREAD OF THE
FAITH. SECTION 3. IS THERE A DUALISM ?
The defeat of Zoroaster's followers, as mentioned in
the preceding chapter, did not break their courage. For
Vistaspa rallied his scattered forces and gave battle again,
and this time he achieved a great success. But his own
household suffered sorely, twenty-two of his sons being
slain. This number seems extravagant, but is in keeping
with the foolish statement that Zarir, the brother of Vis-
taspa, repeatedly hewed down ten Khyons at one blow.
Zarir himself finally falls, pierced to the heart by a spear,
but not until Arjasp's army is defeated with terrible
slaughter.!
How much time elapsed between these two battles
cannot be stated. The Shah-Nama says two weeks, but if
in the first engagement there was such confusion among
the Iranians that they were only saved by part of a moun-
tain sliding down into the plain, and thus sheltering them
from their enemies that time is too short.^
! The Shah-Nama says Arjasp lost 100,000 slain in the
two battles. That work greatly tries my patience by its
foolish exaggerations. It mentions that in both wars
Vistaspa lost thirty-eight sons. If so, he must have been
a very industrious man, as well as wise sovereign.
2 I was with a great defeated army under McClellan,
138
A COMPLETE VICTORY 139
The victory, however, is complete, for Arjasp is driven
back to his own countr}^, so humbled, that Zoroaster makes
progress with his religion for several years before his old
enemy appears again to break the peace.
By this victory Vistaspa becomes at once the arm and
support of Zoroaster's cause. The later Avesta sets forth,
exultingly, that he found religion standing bound, and
took her from the hands of the Kyans, and established
her high, ruling, holy and blessed with plenty of cattle
and pasture.^ The same authority states that he drove all
his enemies before him, conquered them, and thus made
wide room for the holy religion. Some of these enemies
are mentioned, and among them Arjasp, as being particu-
larly fiendish and wicked.^
Peace now reigned for a season, and Vistaspa, to em-
phasize and extol his victory, sends his son, Isfander, to
surrounding tribes and nations to proclaim the tidings
thereof. There is a tradition that Vistaspa also founded a
fire-temple and placed Jamasp, as high priest, in charge
of it. But this is surely an error, for neither the Iranians
nor the Persians, their children, worshipped in temples.
They had their mountain of Holy Questions ; their Sinai,
where Zoroaster talked with Ormazd ( ?) ; and they be-
in 1862, when he was driven from the front of Richmond
and fled to the shelter of the gunboats on James River,
and I there learned that two weeks is much too short a
time for a routed army to recuperate and recruit its ex-
hausted strength.
3 Zamyad Yast, § 86, S. B. E., Vol. 23.
^ Arjasp is often called Argat-Aspa, but I prefer the
shorter cognomen.
140 VICTORY HELPS THE FAITH
lieved that the tops of hills and mountains were nearer
to Heaven, and they worshipped there.
§ 2. This last battle and victory gave a very great im-
petus to Zoroaster's creed. "From near and from afar" ^
people came seeking knowledge of the new religion. Evil
beliefs, he said, are the overthrow of the wicked. And he
repeats to them that when the world's two first spirits
came together the More Bountiful thus spake to the Evil
One: "I do not think what thou thinkest, for I think
what is good, and thou thinkest what is evil. Neither our
beliefs, nor our deeds, nor our consciences, nor our souls
are in harmony."
The sage then declares that all who will not obey the
righteous Mazda their life shall end in woe. But they
who follow the Good Mind, striving within their souls,
shall reap weal and immortality. Blessings to the right-
eous, but woe to the wicked, these things hath Mazda
established throughout his realm. The demon Gods must
be opposed, thwarted, defeated. But the bounteous Lord
of Saving Power, who gives weal and immortality, jnust
be adored, honored, obeyed. **He is our brother ; yea, he
is more than brother. He is father to us ; Mazda, Lord.
And he will bestow rewards beyond this earth." ^
§ 3. It will be noticed that here, again, is mentioned
"the world's two first spirits." Did Homer, who lived
nine or ten centuries before Jesus, catch the thought from
the Iranian Seer, and by changing the original slightly,
paint this picture?
^Yas. 45, § I-
6 Yasma 45 ; also Yas. 30, § 4. and Yas. 46, § 19. See
also ch. 12, § I.
HOMER AND ZOROASTER 141
*' Two Urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,
The source of evil, one ; the other good.
From thence, the cup of mortal man he fills.
Blessings to these, to those, distributes ills.
To most, he mingles both." Book 24. Iliad.
It must be conceded that Zoroaster, so far as known,
brought into the world this idea of two contending spirits ;
the one good, the other evil. The poet makes one God
(Jove) the author of all our ills, sin and misery. Which
of these great souls is right? Here are two systems or
theories, and men have taken opposing sides since the
Iranian Seer first announced his duality. Possibly some
other great thinker, even before his day, had stumbled
against this unanswerable enigma. We leave this matter
here with this question: If there exists a duality, and
behind these a unity, or creative power, which controls
them; then, against Zerana-Akerana, or whatever that
unity may be named, must be charged the responsibility
for all the evil and sin in the world. For with such lim-
itless power, He can make and unmake worlds and myr-
iads of worlds. Hence how easy for Him at one stroke
to smite and destroy sin with all its ugly brood."^ Or is
this theory true? Does the Great I Am rule this planet
by His vicegerents ? Possibly angels are delegated to act.
In the Desatir this question is answered in this wise:
God is the immediate Maker of the Angels. He used the
medium of no instrument in bestowing existence on them,
but in regard to all other existences he used Media or
instruments.^
■^ See § I, ch. 12.
8 Desatir, published at Bombay, 1818, Vol. 2, p. 125.
142 PREACHERS CLAIM THEY ARE CALLED
We know that every orthodox minister, and some who
are not orthodox, claims that God has called him to act
as a helper. Is it true that the Divine Being, we call God,
is simply the vicegerent of some higher and more mighty
power? Thomas Dick, the devout astronomer, in his
great work, says, there are nine thousand millions of visi-
ble worlds about us. Our world is only as a grain of
sand on the seashore. Yet it took millions of years to
build it ; and if it required Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, and
multitudes of other, to labor in the moral vineyard, why
not some colossus to superintend the whole? This prob-
lem did not escape Zoroaster. Its germ is in the Avesta,^
but the Seer did not elaborate it. Dualism served his
purpose. Moreover Dualism was easier for his people to
understand. But who shall say there is no Zerana Aker-
ana?
9 Farvardin Yast, § 80, Vol. 23, S. B. E. Also Far-
gard 19, Vendidad, § 46, Vol. S. B. E.
CHAPTER XVI.
MIRACLES. THE ROOF OF A TEMPLE PARTS FOR ZOROASTER.
TWO SCOFFERS SENT UP IN THE AIR. ELISHA AND THE
SHE-BEARS. ZOROASTER HEALS THE BLIND. MOSES
BRINGS DOWN MURRAIN AND HAIL. VISIONS OF THE
PROPHETS. JOSHUA AND THE SUN. IN ZOROASTEr'S
VISION HE SEES HEAVEN AND HELL.
Around every great historic name myths and legends
gather, and the greater the name the more the myths
and legends seem to multiply about it. The marvelous,
with some, is more pleasing than the real. With those
the Arabian Knights and the Travels of Gulliver are en-
chanting. That class will here find mental pabulum to
their liking.
In one of Zoroaster's crusades against unbelievers a
great multitude was gathered to hear him. Royalty,
gorgeously appareled, princes and peers were there. A
mighty temple was packed to overflowing. The audience,
on tiptoe with expectation, was waiting and watching his
coming. Suddenly, to its amazement, and almost terror,
there was a great snapping and cracking over their heads,
as if the building were about to collapse and fall. But,
instead, a rift appeared in the roof. It parted asunder,
hither and thither, by some invisible agency, and the
prophet, holding a great blazing ball of fire in his hand,
came down through the rifted roof. The fire did not
burn him, and the roof swung back into its place without
mortal help and without so much as a splinter falling.
143
144 INDIA AND PERSIA IN DEBATE
This startling exhibition of supernatural power was, to
the waiting throng, a certain proof that his person was
sacred, his mission divine.
At another time he chanted his revelation in the home
of Vistaspa with such pleasing power that not only the
people who heard him were filled with righteousness but
even the cattle of the fields, and the beasts of burden
danced with joy. Meanwhile the fame of the Seer had
penetrated India, where his creed ran counter to the Rig-
veda. There lived at that time one Cangranghacah, a
learned Brahman, a great philosopher, scholar and teach-
er, who proposed to come to Balkh (Bactria) and over-
throw Zoroaster and his creed. He set out with a large
retinue of distinguished persons, scholars versed in the
lore of Veda, together with disciples anxious to listen to
the great debate. Ormazd gives the Prophet full pre-
monition of all the questions Cangranghacah will ask,
and the answers he shall make to them.
To each interrogatory of the Hindu the Seer reads a
chapter from the Avesta in full answer and refutation.
The audience is astonished, and the Brahman confounded.
He is not only confounded, but he is then and there con-
verted to the Iranian creed, and returns home with the
Avesta, prepared to teach its doctrines to the dwellers on
the Indus and the Ganges.
§ 2. Another legend even more marvelous is that while
the Prophet was making one of his many pilgrimages
through the country, teaching wherever he could get a
hearing, he met two unbelieving princes, whom he be-
sought to embrace the faith. They sneered at his en-
treaty, and scoflfed at his religion. Thereupon he prayed
to Ormazd, and directly a great wind began to roar
TWO SCOFFERS PUNISHED US
around them, which snatched the scoffers up into the air
and held them there until the birds picked out their eyes
and tore the flesh from their bones. When the bones had
fallen to the earth the Seer admonished the wondering
and terrified people that such was the fate of all who
scoffed at the good religion of Mazda. Probably the
writer of Second Kings, chapter second, had heard of the
two scoffing princes and their fate when he wrote the
story about the forty-two children down there near Bethel
who scoffed at Elisha and said: *'Go up thou Bald-
Head." Elisha "turned back and cursed them in the name
of the Lord'' ; and "there came forth two she bears, out
of the wood, and tore forty and two children of them."
This difference must, however, be noticed : The children,
the text says, were "little'\ Like all other "little" children,
they were no doubt thoughtless, and merely to say to him,
"Go up thou bald-head" was no sufficient provocation for
Elisha to curse them, and get the she bears to "tear
them." This story, if true, makes Elisha a wretch, and
if Zoroaster prayed Ormazd for the whirlwind to suspend
the two princes in the air while the birds devoured them
he must be placed in the same category.*
* I have tried to find some reason for the children's con-
duct, and can only give this : Elijah had just "gone up",
and probably the children had heard of "the chariot of
fire" and the "horses of fire", and they wanted to see
another pyrotechnic display. They told Elisha to "go up."
They simply wanted to see the strange performance, and
got killed for their curiosity. The story of the two scof-
fing princes is a legend. I do not set it down as a fact.
But this Elisha matter is in our Bible, and it is set down
as a solemn truth. But there are some improbable things
146 HEALING THE BLIND
A story is told of the Iranian healing a blind man. But
he did not merely say, ''Receive thy sight". ^ He told his
friends to squeeze the juice of a certain plant (which he
named) into the man's eyes and his vision would come
back to him. This they did, and behold the man was soon
rejoicing in a restored sight.
Tacitus relates that the Emperor Vespasian, while in
Judah healed a blind man^ but he first ordered his physi-
cians to examine whether the eye-balls were totally de-
stroyed. Finding them dreadfully diseased, but not en-
tirely ruined, he ordered remedies, which fortunately
proved successful.^
§ 3. If we follow the Dinkard ^ we make the Iranian
Seer not only the founder of a new religion, but in addi-
tion, we elevate him to the highest eminence in medical
attainments. The Dinkard writers are, however, much
like those of the Old and New Testament ; they are given
to great exaggerations, and delight in the marvelous.
The Prophets in both books ^ were gifted with power to
about it. How did the writer know they were she bears ?
Who told him ? They were evidently wild bears, for they
came out of the wood. Let, now, the best man in the
world get forty-two little children torn by bears, or any
other animal, he would swing for it. Prophet, or no
prophet, Elisha ought to have been punished.
2 Jesus said to a blind man : "Receive thy sight, thy
faith hath saved thee." Luke, ch. 18, v. 42.
3 Vespasian was born nine or ten years after Jesus, and
his cure was about thirty years after the occurrence men-
tioned in Luke, ch. 18. Royalty, and noted persons, at
that period were believed to possess preternatural gifts.
4 Dk. 7, Vol. 47, ch. 5, § 8, S. B. E.
5 The Bible and Dinkard.
THE ORIGINAL DIVES AND LAZAR US STOR Y 147
vanquish demons, and sorcerers, and witches ; to cure dis-
eases, and call down rain, or declare a drouth.^ Moses
could stretch forth his hand, and lo! the locusts would
swarm upon Egypt ; and the Dinkard says Zoroaster pos-
sessed the same preternatural power. Moses could bring
upon Egypt murrain, and flies, and hail, and snakes -J and
Zoroaster could banish pestilence and drive away wolves,
and spiders, and noxious creatures. He could shake the
rain from reluctant clouds to moisten the earth. Similar
parallels between Zoroaster and many others of the Jew-
ish prophets might also be made. Isaiah had a vision in
which he saw his people, a sinful nation, bringing vain
oblations, Jerusalem ruined, and Judah fallen, hell en-
larged, and the multitude gone astray.
Jeremiah beheld in a vision his people swallowed up in
trouble, ''and his lamentations" are full of tears. Ezekiel
also wailed for his people, and Solomon found the "grass-
hopper to be a burden." ^ Zoroaster likewise had a vision
in which he saw the fearful ebb-tide of his religion. Not
only that, but (after the manner of Dives and Lazarus)
he caught a glimpse of the other world. There he saw
a celebrity, whose life had been infamous, his soul was
jaundiced and in hell ; in Mazda's blessed realm a beggar's
soul was thriving in Paradise. He beheld evil overshad-
owing his land ; myriads of demons, with disheveled hair,
rushing into his country to burn and destroy. Regard for
^ Elijah, the Tishbite, gave Ahab a terrible drouth. He
controlled the rain clouds for three years, ist Kings, ch.
I, V. 17.
■^ Exodus, ch. 9 and 10.
^ Eccle. 12, 7.
148 ZOROASTER'S SEVEN-DAY VISION
the soul had died out ; the sun was spotted, and the earth
barren. Vegetation, trees and shrubs were shriveled.
Well might he exclaim, "O, Iran ! return unto Mazda, thy
God ; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." ^ But "the
wolf period," with covetousness, want, hatred, wrath, lust,
envy, and wickedness,^^ passes away, and the glory of
the religion of Mazda comes again with the Millennium
of Hushedar. For seven days and nights this panoramic
view, in which Zoroaster saw all the regions of the earth,
floated past the astonished vision of the Seer. "I have
seen all this, in a pleasant dream," he said, and ''I am not
surfeited." ^^ We are told in Genesis, chapter 28, that
Jacob also had a dream, and he saw a ladder reaching
up to heaven, and the angels of God were climbing up
and down it, and the Lord himself was standing above it.
Genesis 28; 12.
§ 4. It should be mentioned, in addition to the above,
that in chapter seven, of the Gospel of the Infancy of
Jesus, it is there stated that Zoroaster had a vision of
the wise men, coming from the East to Jerusalem, with
offerings of gold, etc., to the Saviour, and that he prophe-
sied the coming of Jesus.^^
Prophets, both in the Jewish and in the Iranian religion,
are said to have held frequent conferences with the Al-
mighty. In fact, those two religions are the only ones
where the Lord takes supreme command, and directs the
^ Hosea, ch. 14, v. i.
10 Bahman Yast, ch. 3, § 40.
11 Bam Yt., § 9.
^2 I ought, after all these sayings about visions and
prophets, to state that I have very serious doubts whether
any man, at any period of the world, could forecast the
ZOROASTER AND MOSES 149
battle against Satan. In nearly every chapter of the
Pentateuch it is, 'The Lord said unto Moses/' or Abra-
ham, or somebody; and in the older Avesta, 'The Boun-
tiful One (the Lord) told me (Zoroaster) the best word
for mortals," etc.^^ And in the later Avesta and the
Vendidad, Mazda (the Lord), on request, talks to Zoro-
aster and directs him from day to day. Still the Lord is
rather partial to Moses, for he directs him without any
request whatever.
Moses could stretch forth his arm toward heaven and
call down ''thick darkness in all the land," so dark that
people could not see one another for three days.^^ The
Lord further honored Moses, for he not only attended his
obsequies, but absolutely acted as his undertaker.^^ But
he did not put up a tombstone, for "no man knoweth
his sepulchre unto this day." As an offset to this, the
Lord sent his angel, Vohu-Mano, and piloted Zoroaster
up to heaven, for a special conference, where the bril-
liancy was so great that he could not see his own
shadow.^ ^
§ 5. As marvelous as these things appear, more won-
future for any great length of time, and then not in a
vision. A clear-headed man might, on a given state of
facts, say as to a battle, or a storm, or a drouth, judge
something of the immediate future ; possibly, matters con-
cerning a nation, he might predict that in a few years,
matters would be so-and-so. Possibly he might guess
correctly on ten or twenty years.
13 Yas. 45, §§ 3 to 8, Vol. 31, S. B. E.
1^ Exodus 10; 22 and 23.
1^ Deuteronomy, ch. 34.
16 Zad Spar., ch. 21, § 14, Vol. 47, S. B. E.
150 THE JOSHUA FABLE
drous things are told of Joshua.^'^ He was battling the
Amorites, down there at Gibeon, and had chased them up
beyond Beth-horon, with great slaughter, and the day
was waning. So he said : "Sun, stand thou still, and thou
moon, in the valley of Ajalon." And the sun stood still,
and the moon stayed until the Jews had avenged them-
selves upon their enemies. So the sun stood still in the
midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole
day." All this, so that Joshua, and those idol-worship-
ping Hebrews, could "avenge themselves upon their ene-
mies."
Now, the sun has eight primary planets, which circle
round him. Some of them are one thousand times larger
than our little earth. There are eighty-five asteroids, be-
sides numerous comets and moons. We know that the
sun is rushing through space at the rate of about one mil-
lion miles per day, in the direction of the Northern con-
stellation, and was going in that direction when Joshua
was down there slaying the Amorites. And the sun was,
then, as now, carrying Mercury and Venus, Earth and
Mars, the asteroids and Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Nep-
tune along with him. The sun is six hundred times
greater than all of his satellites combined, and he is mov-
ing around a center so vast that it takes him about eight-
een millions of years to complete his circuit. Yet Joshua,
so the record says, halted this whole vast, wonderful con-
stellation ; so that he might murder some Amorites. He
i'^ Joshua, ch. lO, v. 12 to 14. The writer of Joshua
believed the Earth to be stationary, and that the sun was
the Earth's satellite. He would not have made that mis-
take in 1902. He would have been differently inspired.
HUSHEDAR TO SURPASS JOSHUA 151
not only compelled our sun to stand still (if the record
be true), but the puny word of that robber chief, either
halted all the millions of worlds about us, at the same
time, or threw them out of balance and into confusion.
Which was it ? What a fortunate thing for the corn, the
barley, and the oats, that he compelled the sun to stand
still, only one day.
We have mentioned, elsewhere, about the three unborn
sons of Zoroaster ^^ who are to be born of virgins, at dif-
ferent periods of the world, and thus finally to bring
about its renovation and the millennium. The first of
these sons, Hushedar, when be becomes thirty years of
age, is to have a conference with the Lord, and when he
comes away from that meeting he will be endowed with
such infinite power that he will cry to the sun, ''Stand
still!" and the sun will stand still ten days and nights.
This miracle is to prove his divine mission, so that the
people will fully believe in the good religion of Mazda.
Night settles down upon the earth, and Mithra, the Lord
of Wide Pastures, cries out: ''O, Hushedar! restorer of
the Good Religion! cry to the sun thus: 'Move on,'
for the world in all its zones, is dark." ^^ Hushedar orders
the sun to "move on", and the sun obeys, and all man-
kind believe in the good religion.
Observe that the sun is not made to stand still, and
thus prolong the time for slaughtering mankind, as with
Joshua. The Persian fiction was written to give consola-
tion to those people in the dark days of their faith. But
^^ See note at end of Third Chapter.
19 Bahman Yt., ch. 3, §§ 46 and 48.
162 A PROPHESY NOT FULFILLED
the prophecy hath never yet been fulfilled ; for Hushedar,
in his coming, is many centuries behind time. Possibly
the Virgin who is to give birth to him hath not yet her-
self been born. Evidently there is a miscarriage some-
where here, for I must assume that the Persian was fully
as much inspired as the writer of the Joshua fiction.
These things are mentioned here only to emphasize the
extent to which ignorant credulity will go. For the
Jews still believe in Joshua, and the remnant of Zoroas-
ter's followers are still waiting for Hushedar to come.
CHAPTER XVII.
SACRIFICES. THE HOLY FIRES. THE TEST AT THE BRIDGE.
HELL OF THE JEWS AND IRANIANS. THE MARVELOUS
IN ALL RELIGIONS.
§ I. Mankind, as far back as our records go (and we
now have printed books ^ at least nine thousand years
old) has been a worshipper of God, and "of strange
Gods." He has worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars,
the clouds. These Gods he could see, and they were the
best Gods that he knew. Different nations have wor-
shipped different Gods. Egypt was given to animal wor-
ship, and particularly to Apis, the sacred bull. The wor-
ship of this animal was carried to such a pitch that when
the bull died he was laid away with great solemnity in a
costly sarcophagus, hewn into solid granite. The He-
brews worshipped a Golden Calf, and the struggle of
Moses and the prophets was to teach them to serve the
true God.
When destroying winds and furious storms burst upon
early man he supposed the Gods were angry, and he
poured libations and offered sacrifices to appease them.
^ Nippur, a city much older than Babylon, has discov-
ered to the world printed records three thousand years
beyond Genesis. And Babylon had stamped brick, and
a library nine or ten thousand years ago. Let us not
falter, even if we find that the worm and the lizard are
our distant relatives.
153
154 VISTASPA SACRIFICES ANIMALS
Lambs and goats were slain and laid upon bloody altars
to appease them. But the Egyptians forbade the use of
swine as an offering. The Hebrews, during their long
bondage there, copied this and carried it with them,
hence their hatred of swine to this day.
Sometimes these bloody sacrifices reached so far that
children were burned to honor an offended Deity. The
Jews carried this matter to such an extent "that they sac-
rificed unto devils." 2 God was supposed to be more
highly pleased with the "firstlings of the flock" than with
the fruits of the field.^ And the priests wrote it down
that none must appear before the Lord empty handed.^
This matter of blood sacrifice went to great extremes.
Solomon, at the dedication of his temple, as we have
m^entioned, sacrificed vast numbers of sheep and oxen.^
The later Avesta tells us that Vistaspa offered up one
hundred horses, one thousand oxen, and ten thousand
lambs to propitiate the Goddess of Waters, and obtain
victories over the worshippers of Daevas. But nowhere
in the older Avesta is there any mention that Zoroaster
offered any sacrifice whatever. He tells his people that
his doctrines are new% and "till now unheard."
They are doctrinal vows which will deliver the people
from the harmful Lie, and save them to righteousness.^
2 Deut. 32 ; 17.
3 Gen. 4 ; 4 and 5.
4 Exodus 23; 15.
^ Was second Chronicles written after Aban Yast? If
so, it explains why Solomon sacrificed so many more
animals than Vistaspa. 2d Chronicles, 7.
^ Yas. 31, I.
ZOROASTRIANS NOT FIRE-WORSHIPPERS 155
§ 2. There have been those who claim that one of the
deities which Zoroaster and his followers worshipped
was Fire. And the Persians have, in many books, been
called "Fire-Worshippers." So great a Zoroastrian
scholar as Max Miiller says: "In many parts of the
A vesta fire is spoken of with great reverence, but those
who speak of the Zoroastrians as fire worshippers should
know that the true followers of Zoroaster abhor that
very name." "^
Zoroaster himself says : "Fire is an offering of praise." ^
Again, he says : "Thy fire's flame is strong to the Holy
Order". The truth about this matter is that fire was'^
used as a personified Symbol of Divine Power. Bread
and wine in the Eucharist, are symbols of the body and
blood of Jesus ; but his followers do not worship the
symbols, neither did the Parsis worship the symbol. Did
Moses, when he stood before the flaming Altar, worship
the flame? Nay, verily. Nor did the Parsis worship the
fires as Holy Beings.
Now, the "Lord's fire is in Zion," ^ but the devout soul
will neither worship the Hre nor Zion, but the Lord only.
The strongest utterance on this matter is found in the
Avesta**^ in the words of Zoroaster himself: "We pray
for Thy Fire, O, Ahura! strong through righteousness;
swift and powerful, in many wonderful ways, to the
house, with joy, receiving it".
'^ Max Miiller, in his preface to the Upanishads, Vol. i.
Part I, P. XXn.
8 Yas. 43, § 9.
® Isaiah 31 ; 9.
1^ Avesta, ch. 34, § 4.
156 THE COURT EMBRACES THE NEW FAITH
Now, while it is true that they had their sacred fires,
and an angel of fire (Burzim-Mitro), they neither wor-
shipped the fires nor the angel. Vistaspa, after his con-
version, established a sacred fire on Mount Revand;^^
but there is no record anywhere that he worshipped it.
To charge the Parsis with worshipping fire is to charge
them with bowing to idols made by their own hands.
§ 3. The Zoroastrian creed was, meanwhile, gaining
ground. Just how fast it is impossible to tell. But after
Vistaspa's conversion, he (Vistaspa) began to use force,
and it is said he killed some of his subjects because they
would not accept the creed. Gamaspa, the prime minis-
ter, and FrashoStra, his brother, and Zarir, the king's
brother, and Hutaosa, the king's wife, and, in fact, the
whole court, having accepted the new religion, the people
began to fall in line with considerable alacrity. It is
always so, the morals or religion of a court is like a dis-
ease, infectious. The people in those ignorant times
thought they could not be far wrong if they followed the
king and his court. Even some of the Turanians became
converted ; and Yasna, forty-six, mentions Fryana, a pow-
erful border tribe, who accepted the new faith. These,
and all others who will cause the settlements to thrive in
goodness and piety, the Seer declares, shall, when they ap-
proach the Judge's Bridge ^^ not miss their path and fall,
but shall dwell with Ahura through joyful deliverance.
^1 This mountain is supposed to be in Khorassan, about
Lat. 37, Lon. 57, and about 250 miles east of southern
extremity of the Caspian.
12 Kinvad Bridge. See ch. 10, § i.
IS HEAVEN AND HELL MENTAL STATES 157
And again is repeated the warning, that the conscience of
the wicked, smitten with remorse, shall then confront him
and cause him to fall into the abyss.
This frequently bringing to our notice the crucial test
at the Bridge is a matter for thoughtful consideration:
The righteous, meeting an approving conscience, which
gives him gracious welcome and an assurance of safe
passage to the land of the leal. The wicked, confronted
and convicted, by his burned and seared conscience, sees
the awful chasm yawning to swallow him up. Is not
this doctrine of meeting one's conscience at the Bridge
simply the doctrine that the mind is not only its own
accuser, but that it administers its own chastisement?
How can there be any other than a mental heaven and a
mental hell? If there be, somewhere, in this mighty
Universe two such places as heaven and hell, is it not the
mind that rejoices in one and suffers in the other? The
body does not go to the Bridge, it rots in the grave. The
worms eat it, or the flames, or waves destroy it. And, if
it be true, as stated in second Peter, chapter 3, that the
elements will melt with fervent heat, and the earth and
the works therein, be burned up, then all bodies will be
so thoroughly incinerated that hell itself can burn them
no more.
But I am told the dead will be resurrected. Will they
be resurrected before the earth and its works therein are
burned? For if resurrected before the earth is burned,
then it will be rather a warm time for the righteous as
well as the wicked. If resurrected after the earth is
burned up, those poor resurrected bodies will be worse
off than Noah's dove; for there will not only be no rest
for the soles of the feet, but no ark to go into. Poor
158 NO BODILY RESURRECTION
things ! Ah ! says some one, ''the Lord will take care of
the righteous." Yes, but He burned up their earth, and
everything on it; and their resurrected bodies must be
fed. How about this ? Well, he is going to make a new
heaven and a new earth. Ah ! just so. But it took Him
millions of years to make the earth which He destroyed.
\^'hat did he burn it up for? You mistake. He made it
in six days. Did He? Only six days? Well, the poor
resurrected bodies will get pretty hungry even in six
days. And, besides, you have not answered why he
burned up the six-day world. You mistake again. They
are spiritual bodies. If that be so then He did not resur-
rect the body that went down into the grave — the flesh
and blood body. Oh ! yes. He did. They were all resur-
rected, but were changed in a twinkling. Changed!
Then what became of the flesh, and blood, bodies ? O !
after the resurrection the mortal bodies are not needed.
We have spiritual bodies. But, again, what becomes of
the flesh and blood bodies? Are they floating around in
space? Please answer. God, we are told, will see to
that. The resurrected will not need them. Then, why
were those bodies resurrected at all?
But St. Paul says : 'Tf there be no resurrection of the
dead, then is Christ not risen." ^^ The answer is: If
Christ was merely a man, then his body did not rise; if
He was a God, it proves nothing. It is a flagrant non
sequiter.
§ 4. The New Testament tells us that "the wicked
shall be severed from the just." Now, what is to happen
^3 1st Corinthians, ch. 15, v. 13.
THE CHRISTIAN HELL 159
to their bodies pi* Are they to be resurrected; and, if so,
for what purpose ? The John Calvin stripe of Christians
will reply that they were resurrected to meet their fate —
their doom. What is their doom? Jesus says (?) that
at the end of the world, all those who offend, and them
which do iniquity, shall be cast into a furnace of fire, and
*'there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." ^^ Even
angels are cast down to hell and put in chains and dark-
ness.^ ^ But the eyes of the wicked are not burned out;
for the rich man, in hell, lifted up his eyes and saw Laz-
arus, afar off, in Abraham's bosom. It is possible that
the rich man may have just dropped in and the ''flame
which tormented him" had not yet burned his eyes out.
Perhaps this whole thing is only a figure of speech.
There is, however, communication between heaven and
hell ; for Abraham and the rich man held an extended
conversation, wherein Abraham informed the sinner that
there was ''a great gulf fixed between the two places"
which nobody could cross.^*^ But ''the fire is everlasting^^ ',
and that there should be no misunderstanding about this
matter it is twice repeated in the same chapter.^ ^
1^ Matt, ch. 13; 49.
15 Matt. 13, V. 40 to 50.
1^ There is a little discrepancy here between the hell
into which the angels were thrust (2d Peter, ch. 4), and
the rich man's hell. He was in "the flame", and flames
mean light, brightness. The angels were chained in dark-
ness. Darkness is the Persian hell.
'^'^ Luke, ch. 16, v. 19 to 31. The reader will notice that
the Persian Bridge fable appears in this "Gulf fable, also
of Abraham.
18 Matt., ch. 25, v. 41 to 46.
160 IN THE PERSIAN HELL HAVE FOUL FOOD
Now, as we have elsewhere stated, Zoroaster's hell did
not burn. He says: ''for the wicked the worst life; for
the Holy, the best mental state." ^^ Again he speaks of
the long wounding of the wicked, and of the two bat-
tling sides ; 20 the truthful and the liar ; and for the liar,
long life shall be his lot in darkness, foul shall be his
food. ''Such a Ufe, O! ye vile, your own evil deeds will
bring upon you." 21 It must not be overlooked that in the
Persian hell they keep them on foul food, but the Chris-
tian hell is so severe that they will not give them even a
"drop of water."
The fact is, the Christian hell is full of contradictions.
How long can a man live in the flames and without water ?
Not everlastingly. But, I am told that all these hell mat-
ters, in Matthew and Luke, etc., are merely parables or
figures of speech. It must be said in reply that they are
set forth by the same authority, and with the same
earnestness, that heaven is promised to the just. Possi-
bly, therefore, all that is said about heaven is simply a
figure of speech. Perhaps Zoroaster's foul food for the
wicked, and weal and immortality for the righteous, are
parables, or figures of speech. The Persian says the
wicked are a seed from the evil mind; they are children
of perversion, astray from the living Lord, and His
righteousness, and that the evil spirit enters and governs
them.22 Paul copies him almost exactly when he calls
19 Yas. 30, § 4-
20Yas. 31, § 3.
21 Yas. 31. §§ 20 and 21.
22Yasna 32, §§ 3 to 5.
ALL RELIGIONS DEAL IN THE MARVELOUS 161
Elymas, the sorcerer, "a child of the devil, full of all
subtlety and mischief, perverting the ways of the
Lord." 23 Jesus, himself, follows Zoroaster, when he
says, 'The works of the world (the unrighteous) are
evil." 24
§ 5. All religions, as we have said, deal in the mar-
velous, but the dogmas of the Jewish and Christian relig-
ions surpass all others in the extravagance of their claims
and in the arrogance with which they are put forth. I
shall only notice one or two of the ridiculous and absurd
claims of the old Jewish religion. Does any sane man
really believe that the Almighty spake unto Moses, "face
to face, as a man speaketh unto a friend ?" ^^ Is it prob-
able that the Lord, on Mount Sinai, gave unto Moses
"two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the
finger of GodJ'^^ The Lord never does for man what man
can do for himself. Moses was skilled in all the learning
of Egypt, and he, himself, no doubt, wrote those com-
mandments. Is it true, as Moses states, that ''the tables
were the work of God, and the writing was the writing
of God, graven upon the tables?" 27 Moses, we know,
got mad and broke the tables which the Lord had written
with his finger; and then the Lord directed him to write
them after the tenor of the first ones; and it took him
forty days, and he did not have anything to eat or drink
in all that time.28
23 Acts 13, V. 6 to 10.
2"* John 7 ; 7.
25 Exodus 33; II.
26 Exodus 31 ; 18.
27 Exodus 33; II.
28 Exodus 34; 28,
162 RELIGION IS A MATTER OF EDUCATION
We are educated from childhood to believe these
things (at least, I was), and after mature years, it seems
almost desecration to push these idols from their pedes-
tals. There are just as improbable things in the Persian
Bible, told of Zoroaster, and yet we give them no credit
whatever, simply because we have not been taught to be-
lieve them. Now, while many men have been valiant
for falsehood, they merely mistook her form for that
glorious Goddess of Truth. They simply erred, not wil-
fully, but through false education, or false reasoning.
Shall we condemn them? Shall we roast them in a fur-
nace of fire? Or shall we have charity "which is not
puffed up, and which thinketh no evil ?"
CHAPTER XVIII.
EGYPT AND IRAN. CHRISTIAN RELIGION BASED ON
ZOROASTRIANISM.
§ I. Whence came the idea into the world of punish-
ment at Kinvad Bridge ? Who brought it here ? Was it
some poet, who Hved before Zoroaster, or some early
Milton, whose fertile brain pictured Gods and Devils at
war? Of this we are certain: the Gathas precede any
other mention of it from any source, Egypt and India
possibly excepted. If Zoroaster originated it, he cer-
tainly drew an awful picture of the unpenitent falling into
that frightful abyss. Perhaps the picture itself is only the
climax of his theory of two contending spirits, and two
striving classes, which he saw about him ; the honest till-
ers of the soil, and the robber bandits who slaughtered
the herds and laid waste the fields. Was his mind poeti-
cal as well as philosophical ; and did he paint the Bridge,
and the terrifying chasm beneath it, to frighten the rob-
bers?
He clearly taught the immortality of the soul, which
Moses did not do. Did the Iranian learn this from the
Egyptians and did he transplant it into his own country?
If the Chronology of our Bible be correct ( ?), Noah and
his Ark were afloat about four thousand two hundred
years ago. At that time the priests of Egypt were teach-
ing the immortality of the soul.^ They were not inter-
^ The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was in
163
164 EGYPT GAVE THE SOUL A TRIAL
rupted by the flood, because it did not reach as far as
Egypt.
Osiris, the good God, had his angels or helpers; and
Set, the Evil Deity, was there with his devils. But the
flood was not. Had the religion of the Nile, before Zoro-
aster's day, penetrated to the Oxus, and did he merely
change the name of Osiris to Ahura-Mazda, and Set to
Angra-Mainyu ? We have said, in a former chapter, that
the separation of the Aryan tribes took place fully forty
three hundred years ago. How far beyond that time, it
is impossible at present to state. But if Zoroaster was on
earth four thousand years ago, he may have heard of
Osiris and Set ; of immortality ; and of the Judge of the
Dead ; and of sacrifices ; ^ and oblations. All those mat-
ters were familiar to the people of Egypt at least forty-
three centuries ago. But if Zoroaster borrowed from
them he reversed some things of vital importance.
The Egyptians were religious but not excessively
truthful. They did not confess and repent of their sins,
as in other religions, but met all charges with a flat
denial. The soul, after death, was supposed to present
itself before Osiris for trial. Set, the demon God, was
there to prefer charges, and seize the wicked. Here, in-
stead of admitting faults, and asking clemency, the soul
of the dead, however bad his life may have been, replied :
"I have not lied ; I have not caused suffering ; I have not
the world about 2,380 years B. C. That is about 4,282
years ago. It cannot at present be traced much beyond
that.
2 The Jews learned of sacrifices, and copied from the
Egyptians.
THE ORIGIN OF EGYPT'S RELIGION 165
murdered nor committed fraud; I have not cheated by
false weights, nor committed adultery, nor stolen ; I have
loved God, clothed the naked, fed the poor, given water
to the thirsty/' Every one answered all questions favor-
ably, or he was snatched and carried off to the under-
world. Did Zoroaster change this trial of the soul before
Osiris to the trial at the Bridge ? If he did he compelled
the guilty soul to speak its own condemnation. In nearly
every Gatha he assails the Lie-Demon: "Abjure the Evil
Mind, and that lying sin, which is, alas! a familiar fault
indulged in by the people. Banish falsehood from among
you. I abjure it and call earnestly on all to follow the
straight paths of truth, thereby gaining life in the Blessed
Realm." ^
§ 2. Now, it is possible, but somewhat questionable,
that the Iranian Seer lived two thousand four hundred
years B. C. But on the other hand, ethnologists find, in
the language of Egypt, so very many Sanscrit words that
they look to India as the cradle of Egypt's language.
Moreover, the skulls of the oldest mummies are exactly
like the skulls of the Caucasian race. The pendulum thus
swings back to the far East. The reasoning is nearly the
same, as if some great cataclysm should overtake the
earth and destroy the evidences of civilization so far as to
make it doubtful whether the English language was
formed in England or America ; and the proof should be
found, that in the sixteenth century it was the language
of England. And the further proof found, that Ply-
mouth Rock and Jamestown were not settled until 1620
^Yas. 33, §§ 4to8.
166 ZOROASTER AND EGYPT
by people from England. The evidence, therefore, would
be irresistible that England was the birthplace of that
language.
The proof in favor of India being the cradle of the
Egyptian tongue may not be as certain as that England
is the original home of the English language, but it may
be added that no Egyptian words are found in the Hindu
tongue, but Hindu words are plentiful in Egypt. How
did they get there ? While language is perpetually chang-
ing, the roots of all languages remain permanent. San-
scrit, itself, is certainly the daughter of a language so
old that we know neither its age nor its origin. So that
while it is possible that Zoroaster may have copied from
Egypt, it is also possible that Egypt borrowed from him
forty-three centuries ago. But Egypt has a vast record,
and if her chronology be correct the probabilities are
against the Iranian. For her first Dynasty, that of
Menes, according to M. Mariette, began five thousand
and four years B. C, or nearly one thousand years before
the world was created, according to Genesis. Beyond
Menes, the centuries stretch out indefinitely, and some
venturesome chronologists have fixed her date more than
nine thousand years before Jesus came. It may be that
neither borrowed from the other ; that each originated its
own.
The wild Indians of the West, and the wilder men in.
the Islands of the Ocean, who never heard of Egypt or
Iran, have their deities and their religions. Did they
borrow; and, if so, from whom did they borrow? The
untutored Indian of to-day ''sees God in the clouds, and
hears him in the wind," as did the Aryans and Egyptians
RELIGION SLOWLY CHANGING 167
eight or ten thousand years ago. Only a century or so
back, if a man had made the assertion that much of the
Christian religion was borrowed from the Persians he
would have been most fortunate to have escaped personal
injury, and he might have lost his head. Religious intol-
erance, in past centuries, has hunted to death victims by
the scores, by the hundreds, by the thousands, and by the
tens of thousands. Within a century mobs have howled
after what they termed heretics and fanatics, like wolves
on the scent of blood.^
Religions, as we have said, are not born; they grow;
they change with the changing centuries. What a revo-
lution did Jesus make in the old Mosaic religion. But
does any one believe that if Jesus had not been born that
we would still be slaughtering goats and rams to appease
an angry God? The religion of to-day is less blood-
thirsty than the Calvinism of four hundred years ago.
And as bad as Calvin was, he was surely an improvement
on many of the Popes who lived before him.
Our religion is slowly changing, and in the centuries
to come we shall have, if we keep on, a religion without
furnaces of fire, and lakes of fire and brimstone, and Kin-
vad Bridges for the wicked.
§ 3. But man, with all his infirmities of mind and
heart, has climbed out of the depths so far that nearly all
^ It is probable that if Paul had not written the eighth
chapter of Romans, all that Isaiah and Matthew had said
about "election" would have dropped to the ground. How
did Paul know that God ''elected" certain ones and passed
others by?
168 MAN'S GOD OF 1900 YEARS AGO IS ON TRIAL
transgressions are punished only with a view to reforma-
tion. Zoroaster lived in too early a day to see this. Shall
man be more gentle, loving and forgiving than his Crea-
tor? But even when man inflicts the death penalty it is
roses and sunshine by the side of roasting everlastingly
in a furnace of fire. The truth about this matter is, that
man of the twentieth century is going to put the God of
the first century and the God of the nineteen hundred
years ago on trial. Every new religion, and every refor-
mation of an old religion, puts the God of the old re-
ligion on trial, and from century to century this trial will
go on. It will go on as long as the question is asked:
Is there, after the death of the body of the wicked, a
burning in a furnace of fire? That question is, and
must ever be, of such surpassing importance to mankind
that he will not rest with the supposed prophecies, and
promises, and threatenings of ancient days.
The Iranian may ask: How did Zoroaster find out
about the abyss, and the Bridge, and the demons under
it? Every thinking man will inquire: How did Jesus
know about the furnace of fire, and about Lazarus in
Abraham's bosom, and the rich man in hell? Who told
him about those things? Is it any wonder that some of
us doubt, when his personal friends,^ his very disciples,
doubted ?
When we are told "that his body was carried up into
5 Matt. 28; 17.
^ Jesus says, after his crucifixion, when he ate the fish
and the honey-comb, that he is not a spirit ; Luke 24 ; 39
to 51, and "he was carried up into heaven".
CREATION'S FINAL CHANGE 169
heaven," why should we not doubt? How did Zoroas-
ter know that ''Mazda established evil for evil, and happy
blessings for the good?" And that in Creation's final
change, Mazda, ''with bounteous spirit, and Sovereign
power, will adjudge evil to the evil, and blessings to the
righteous" ? ^ Here is the earliest mention of the Lord's
coming, at creation's final dissolution, to be found in any
writing. Even those who claim that the Iranian Seer
lived only about six hundred years before the Christian
era must admit that Zoroaster makes the first and earliest
direct and unqualified prediction or guess that the earth
shall pass away. Jesus copies the Seer, when he says
that the tares are children of the wicked one, and that at
the end of the world the angels will gather the good into
the kingdom, where they will shine forth as the sun, but
the wicked shall be cast into a furnace of fire. Zoroaster
does not particularize so much as Jesus, but the thoughts
are the same ; and those thoughts and words had been in
the world, and had been considered and believed by many
millions of people for centuries before the man of Galilee
came.
The Zoroastrian faith was the religion of Cyrus, the
Persian King, who released the Jews from their Baby-
lonian captivity. Among the captives were the prophets
"' This is a remarkable passage (Gathas Yas. 43, §§ 5
and 6) in that here is the first direct mention that there
shall be a final change in the creation. Christ and the
apostles, from this hint, preached that the world should
be destroyed. Jesus, in Matthew 13, 37 to 55, uses Zoro-
aster's idea.
170 EZRA AND EZEKIEL IN BABYLON
and scribes, Ezra and Ezekiel, and many of the learned
of Jerusalem were there. Their captivity lasted for a
long generation. Those captives, we know, on their re-
turn, were filled with Persian ideas about religion, and
those ideas afterwards cropped out plainly in many ways.
The Persian Bible, the Avesta, was in Babylon and in
Persepolis written in gold letters on twelve thousand ox-
hides. Persian idjeas of God's dealings with the just and
the unjust had floated along down the stream ; were con-
sidered and believed; and, finally, were written down by
Matthew in chapter thirteen.
§ 4. Persia, from Cyrus onward to the battle of Mara-
thon, was the greatest and most civilized and powerful
nation on earth. Rome was yet in her infancy. Modern
Europe was not yet born. Greece was not a unit, her
people were divided, and only the terror of Persian arms,
for a brief period, held them together. Persia gave law
and religion at that time to the world, and that religion
was the gospel of Zoroaster. Jesus afterwards, whether
God or man, followed it; preached it; emphasized it in
every possible way; and was finally nailed to the cross
for it.
With all due honor to him who could die for opinion's
sake, how was it, or how could it be possible for Jesus
to announce a better or purer doctrine than that so often
repeated by Zoroaster, his predecessor? viz.: "Good
thoughts, good words and good deeds". Do not those
three things embrace all there is, or can be, in any re-
ligion ? Can the most devout saint add anything to them ?
"Yes, he can," says some one ; "he can love Jesus." But
if he has good thoughts he will love not only Jesus, but
yESUS' HELL IS BARBAROUS 171
all the world besides, and God supremely. If he has good
thoughts he is pure in heart. Now, good thoughts are the
very foundations upon which are builded good words and
deeds, always and everywhere.
Love God and thy neighbor, are the two great
commandments.* But how can a man do either unless he
be first filled with good thoughts? Paul preached the
same doctrine; and all true religions in the world are
builded upon Zoroaster's three all-embracing words.
The trouble with Jesus' religion (and there is a trouble
with it) is that it makes God out a very demon in punish-
ment. The infliction, by roasting a poor wretch for a
hundred millions of years, and when that time shall have
elapsed, that he will then only be, as it were, at the door-
steps of his fate, is too awful to believe. Could the very
old Devil do worse ; could any monster be more cruel ?
Could a mother be happy in glory, knowing that her son
or daughter was screaming in the flames? Zoroaster's
hell, as we have said, is terrible ; but it is far less barbarous
than Jesus' hell.
Let us close this chapter by adding, that it must be that
God is a God of mercy, and that remembering our infirmi-
ties, He will deal with us as a father dealeth with an err-
ing son. Here we see "through a glass darkly". There,
if there be a there, we will prune our faults, and try to
fill our minds with good thoughts which will bring a
plentiful harvest of good words and deeds.
^ Matt. 22 ; 36 to 40.
CHAPTER XIX.
DEATH OF ZOROASTER. EXITS OF PROPHETS.
AGE. DOWNFALL OF ZOROASTRIAN FAITH.
The final victory for Vistaspa's forces mentioned in
chapter fourteen gave peace to Iran for fifteen or twenty
years, possibly longer. But another bloody contest is at
hand. Arjasp, during this period of peace, has been busy
gathering a great army for a second invasion. He knows
that the brave Isfander, by reason of calumnies, false and
malicious, is languishing in a dungeon. Vistaspa is en-
joying an indolent peace in Seistan. Balkh has but a
small garrison, and the opportunity is inviting. Forth-
with Arjasp launches his thunderbolts of war. Balkh
is stormed and taken, and Lorhasp, the father of Vis-
taspa, is slain. Eighty priests, at the altar are cut down,
and with them perishes Zoroaster, the father and immor-
tal founder of the Iranian religion, his blood extinguish-
ing the sacred flame, and his dying lips, we may well be-
lieve, invoking Ahura-Mazda to shelter the new-born
faith.
In this emergency, Isfander is called from his prison
and placed in command of Iran's forces. He is a born
warrior, and his inspiring presence so nerves the defeated
troops that they turn upon Arjasp and overwhelm him
with disastrous defeat. But Isfander falls at the moment
of victory. Arjasp is, however, so signally beaten that
172
ZOROASTER SLAIN 173
with the remnant of his army he flees back to Turan,
never again to make war on the Iranians or their faith.
If we credit the Dabistan^ a Turk, named Turbaratur,
rushed upon the Prophet, sword in hand, but the Seer
could fight as well as pray. For a time he defended him-
self with his rosary, but at last fell pierced to the heart
by his adversary's sword.^
The Avesta was not as kind to Zoroaster as Deuteron-
omy was to Moses; for although he fought the Lord's
battles manfully to the end, and accomplished a great
work for the Iranians, still the Lord did not, as with
Moses, even go to his funeral.^
After Zoroaster's death many marvelous versions of
his exit crept into history. This at once stamps him as a
most extraordinary character. For when he went down
it was not merely a ripple on the surface of the stream,
and then eternal silence, but there was tumult, noise, and
confusion. Distant nations heard the sound of his name,
and its echoes and reverberations are yet sounding along
the shores of time. One writer makes the Seer so extrav-
agantly great that in his life time he, with magic art,
ruled the stars, conjured with them until they became so
restive under his power that one of them, in a fit of jeal-
1 The Dabistan is a Persian work published about three
hundred years ago.
2 Dadistin, ch. y2, § 8, has it that Tur I Bradrash, the
enemy of Zoroaster's childhood, finally killed him. But
I doubt it. It would make Tur very old to be in an army.
3 Deut., ch. 34. I never could understand, if the Lord
acted as undertaker, why he did not put up a tombstone
for Moses.
174 MANY MIRACULOUS EXITS
ousy, shot forth a stream of fire which consumed his
body, but charioted away his soul to heaven.*
§ 2. There have been many miraculous exits since
Zoroaster's distant day. Elijah, the Tishbite, about nine
hundred years B. C, mounted in a chariot of fire.'^ But
he had fiery steeds, and they, no doubt, hauled him up in
safety. He probably was not afraid to trust himself to a
chariot of fire, for he had likely heard of the angel who
came to see Mrs. Manoah about Samson, who, when the
interview was over, ascended in a flame. But Mr. Man-
oah, thinking- the angel would get burned to death in the
flame, was terribly frightened and fell down on his face,
and said to his wife : 'Sve shall surely die." ^ But they
did not die, for the scriptures tell us that "the woman
later on bore a son, and called his name Samson."
Tacitus mentions an affair equally strange. A preter-
natural being, above the size of man, he says, appeared
unto Ptolemy in a vision, commanding him to bring the
Statue of the God, Serapis, then in Pontus, into Egypt.
That by this compliance prosperity would come to the
Kingdom, and greatness to the nation. The vision was
then seen instantly mounting to heaven in a column of
fire.7
Empedocles, a Greek philosopher, who lived in the
fifth century B. C., was also called away in a blaze of
* Clementine Recog., written about the time of our
canonical Gospels. It was not unusual, in those days,
for Seers to go up in chariots of fire.
^ 2d Kings, ch. 2, v. ii.
^Judges, ch. 13; 26.
^ Tacitus history. Book 4, § 83.
ZOROASTER 77 WHEN HE DIED 175
glory. But those who doubted had their doubts con-
firmed by finding a peculiar pair of sandals, such as he
wore, thrown up by an eruption of Etna. Thence, they
said, "he has thrown himself into the crater of the vol-
cano, hoping that people will believe him translated." ^
Tacitus was born about twenty years after Jesus was
crucified, and wrote contemporary history, yet the ordi-
nary Bible reader will stoutly discredit his story of the
supernatural, and at the same time will eagerly gulp
down the fables of Elijah and Manoah. If asked the
reason for this, the only answer we can give is that it is
all a matter of education.
§ 3. Zoroaster died at about the age of seventy-seven
years ; that is, fifty-seven years after his acceptance of the
religion.^ Having labored during that long period in
instructing his people to cultivate good thoughts to all
mankind. This would, in his philosophy, check wars and
tumults and finally banish sin and suffering from the
earth.
The great victory, mentioned above, whereby Arjasp
and his army were defeated and driven back to Turan in
utter ruin, compensated somewhat for the death of the
Prophet. For, we may well believe, that if the Iranian
army had been overthrown, dispersed and destroyed, and
^ Empedocles lived about two thousand four hundred
years ago, yet his law of identity is only lately becoming
emphasized. He insisted that all life, including plants
and animals, are but links in an extended chain. That
man himself is but a link in that chain, which connects
him with higher orders of life, angels, etc.
» Dinkard, ch. 7, § 12.
176 IF PERSIA HAD BEEN DEFEATED
the Prophet slain, there would have been a sudden ter-
mination of the Zoroastrian faith and creed. The world's
welfare was, no doubt, promoted by the success of the
Iranians. Waterloo gave peace to Europe, but the vic-
tory over the Turans was worth to the world innumer-
able Waterloos.
With the Iranians defeated neither the Persian re-
ligion nor the Avesta would scarcely have been heard of.
The map of the world, and the religion of the world,
would have been changed. Bandits and plundering would
have been the order of the day for centuries. There
would have been no Cyrus to send the Jews home from
exile. In fact, there would have been no Persian nation
to subdue them and carry them off into exile. Ezra and
Esdras, Nehemiah and Tobit, would have sung in differ-
ent strains. Ezekiel would not have had his vision of the
valley of dry-bones, and the resurrection of the body.^^
And, not carrying these matters too far, would Jesus have
known anything about the resurrection if the Avesta had
never been written ?
Had not Iran won on that bloody field, the Christian
religion would to-day, probably, be following, with some
modifications, the old Mosaic creed; for Zoroaster's doc-
trines, intensified as to punishment, and heaven shown in
somewhat plainer colors, would not have come down to
us. But with Arjasp defeated the banner of Zoroastrian-
ism was lifted on high. It is certain that his religion was
a better one than that which it displaced. Great multi-
tudes came to believe in it, and for more than twelve
^^ Ezekiel, ch. 37.
THE ARABS 177
hundred years it continued to be the faith, hope and solace
of millions of mankind.
§ 4. But evil times at length befell the worshippers of
Mazda. The Arabs, in the great battle of Nehavend,
which took place about twelve hundred and sixty years
ago, near the road from Babylon to Ecbatana, defeated
the Persians so utterly that, thereafter, province after
province yielded to the conqueror, until finally the Per-
sian nation and Zoroaster's religion went into a decline.^ ^
Within one hundred years after this defeat the Arabs,
by fire and by sword, by bribery of the nobles, by perse-
cutions and slaughter of the people, succeeded in fasten-
ing their religion upon most of Mazda's worshippers.
Thenceforward their numbers gradually declined until
now there is but a mere remnant of less than twenty
thousand, of whom most of them reside in or near Bom-
bay. This much may be said of them : They are a sober,
industrious, moral people. They are generous and truth-
ful to the utmost. They are good citizens, leading quiet,
blameless lives. With them good thoughts, words and
deeds are the keys which will unlock the doors of the
Kingdom. In truth, they are the lessening remnants of
a once great and attractive faith, which, at one period,
came near overmastering the world.
Had the Persians defeated Miltiades at Marathon, who
can deny but that Zoroaster's religion would have
marched triumphantly across Europe? Had James H
defeated William, Prince of Orange, in July, 1690, at the
battle of the Boyne, the Catholic religion, instead of the
1^ The battle of Nehavend was fought A. D. 642.
178 THE ARABS
Protestant, might have become the ruling faith of Eng-
land.
Thus, it is seen, that the destinies of religions, as well
as of empires, are sometimes suspended in the balance,
to be decided by the strongest battalions. A few shovels
full of earth, at the Great South Pass, in the Rocky
Mountains, turns one stream towards the Pacific and
another towards the Gulf. The destiny of men and na-
tions, and their religions, at times, is changed just as
easily.
Is it fate that bears nations, as well as individuals, ir-
resistibly on, and determines their lot? Or does blind
chance mix in our affairs, and control us in spite of our
buffetings? This much we may conclude, that had the
Persians won in the battle with the Arabs, the world
would have been better for the victory.
CHAPTER XX.
THE RELIGION OF THE ZEND-AVESTA, AND THE OLD AND
NEW TESTAMENTS BRIEFLY COMPARED.
§ I. Have our ideas, hopes and beliefs about that
mysterious ''undiscovered country," beyond the final val-
ley and shadow, taken shape and form, and become a
fixed part of our civilization, because that great and al-
most mythical Iranian imagined or pictured the beauties
of the eternal shore ? Did he teach the world a fairy tale,
to soothe the sorrows, and add to the joys, of those whom
he saw about him? Was it the imagination of the poet,
"which, from airy nothingness gave to Heaven a local
habitation and a name?"
Of two things we are certain: The Zamyad-Yast and
the Bundahis teach plainly the doctrine of the resurrec-
tion.^ The Gathas again and again teach that the right-
eous shall live in the happy abode of Ahura, and that
destruction shall fall upon the wicked.^ But the Gathas,
while not directly specifying that the body shall be raised,
leave it somewhat in doubt whether the body, or only
the soul, shall enjoy immortal life with Ahura. The
later Avesta, and the Bundahis, mention the body as be-
1 Bundahis, ch. 30, and Vol. 23, S. B. E., pp. 291 and
292.
2 Yas. 30, Yas. 28, Yas. 31, Yas. 32, Yas. 33. It is
not necessary to recite page after page. They all teach it.
179
V
180 IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
ing resurrected. They saw that the mind acted, or acts,
only through the body. If there be no body, they thought
there could be no mind. Later writers would say there
are spiritual bodies. But even if there be such things as
spiritual bodies, they can manifest themselves only
through the mediumship in this life of flesh and blood
bodies. Luke tells us that "a spirit hath not flesh and
bones." ^ We may reply that if the living bodies of men
contain spirits, then we see every day spirits inhabiting
bodies of flesh and blood.
Did Zoroaster teach, or mean to teach, that we can get
along in Ahura's realm without flesh and bones? He is
not specific. But he is specific in teaching immortality.
He did not get that idea from Moses, for there is not a
single trace of the doctrine of a future life in the Penta-
teuch. Not only that, but the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul was taught in Egypt two thousand three hun-
dred and eighty years before Jesus came. It must, there-
fore, have been taught in Egypt nearly one thousand
years before Moses was born. He was educated there, in
the King's Palace, and must have heard of the Ritual
of the Dead. He must have known of the Hall of Two
Truths, and Osiris sitting in judgment. He was learned
in all the lore of Egypt, and therefore knew that the
Egyptians held to the doctrine that the soul completed a
circuit once in three thousand years. That during that
circuit, it must pass through all animals, insects, fishes,
birds, etc.,^ before it again enters the body of man. But
3 Luke 24; 39.
* Herodotus 2; 123.
RETRIBUTION 181
as long as the body was preserved the soul did not have
to commence its circuit. Embalming, therefore, saved it
many years of degradation in those lower forms of life.
Moses knew that the Egyptians did not believe or teach
the doctrine of retribution for the sins of the body. As
Moses did not teach the immortality of the soul, it was
probably because he disbelieved in it. But we are certain
that he did not believe in animal worship, for he ordered
three thousand Israelites slain for worshipping Aaron's
golden calf. (Exodus 32.)
There is one thing, however, which he copied from
r the Egyptians. The name of God, in their tongue, is
- Nuk-pu-Nuk. In Exodus, chapter three, it is "I am that
J I am'\ which in Egyptian is Nuk-pu-Nuk.
§ 2. Moses had neither devil nor hell in his religiqn.
There was no need or use for them, as a sinner could ex-
piate, or atone, for all his sins by sacrificing a goat, or
bull, or a ram. **Moses said unto Aaron, go unto the
altar and offer thy sin-offering, and thy burnt offering,
and make atonement for thyself, and for thy people, as
the Lord commanded." ^
Zoroaster's religion was more difficult He had devils,
big and little, without number; and, as we have seen,
Kinvad Bridge, and Hell beneath it. With Moses, the
only punishment the wicked received was in this life, in
controversies with the righteous. The judges, in such
cases, were ordered to justify the righteous, and condemn
the wicked, and they might order him beaten with forty
stripes.^ Neither did Moses have any sympathy with the
^ Leviticus, 9 '.y.
«Deut. XX, -5:1.
182 WHAT PAUL AND ZOROASTER TAUGHT
poor, for he ordered that the poor man should not be
countenanced in his caused Zoroaster's battle was against
the wicked, and he longed to be to them a "strong tor-
mentor and avenger." * Paul copied him, for he says that
Jesus will come "in flaming fire, and take vengeance on
them that know not the Lord." ^ When the first book of
Samuel was written, the author thereof copied the Iranian
idea of Hell, for he says "the wicked shall be silent in
darkness." But as we approach New Testament times^''
Zoroaster's ideas became more and more plainly incorpo-
rated into Jewish thought. In second Esdras, the right-
eous are promised an inheritance of good things, but the
ungodly shall perish.^^ Zoroaster, centuries before, said
"the blow of destruction shall fall upon the wicked, but
the righteous will gather in the happy abode of Ahura."^^
When Jesus came he was more particular about describ-
ing Hell than Heaven. He tells the wicked they shall
roast in fire;^^ and as to Heaven, he says: "In my
Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so I
would have told you."^^ How He found out about
these things, and how Zoroaster learned about the future
of the wicked, and the righteous, we are at a loss to state.
§ 3. One thing is noticeable about Jesus' Hell. All
^ Exodus 23 13.
8Yas. 43:8.
9 2d Thess. i :8.
^^ 1st Samuel, ch. 2, v. 9.
11 2d Esdras, ch. 7, v. 17.
12 Yas. 30, § 10.
13 Matt. 13; 50.
*^ St. John, 14 ; 2.
IN yESUS' HELL THE WICKED BURN 183
the wicked, of whatever degree, are cast into a furnace of
fire. He does not state that for the small sinner the flame
shall be any less fierce. All are punished, as we may
well conclude, in the same furnace. The murderer of a
thousand roasts in the same furnace with him who steals
a loaf of bread. Human judgment has improved since
that day. Sins are graded, and those of deeper guilt suf-
fer the greater penalty. The Persians were more logical
and sensible ; they had degrees in Hell. And, as we have
seen, they had a place called Hamistaken, a sort of middle
ground, where a man's good deeds just fairly balanced
his bad ones ; he neither got into Heaven nor did he roast
in Hell, He was not worthy of the mansion, and he was
not bad enough for the furnace. He just browsed around
outside, as it were.
The Catholics seized upon Hamistaken and therefrom
constructed their Purgatory. Had Dante lived and writ-
ten his '^Divine Comedy" before either Zoroaster or Jesus
came, they possibly might have drawn upon him and en-
larged somewhat Hell's borders. With nice precision
Dante maps out his Inferno into numerous circles or
spheres, and divides his culprits according to their of-
fenses. He descends into particulars, and even the un-
baptized, though otherwise blameless, he shuts out of
Heaven.
Next come the carnal sinners, and these he dashes
about with relentless fury in blinding storms. Jesus
burns this class in roaring furnaces. But even Dante
borrows from the Persian, and though he transforms the
dogs, that tear the sinners at the Bridge, into the demon
Cerberus, yet that monster is only a ferocious dog in na-
)
184 MATTHEW COPIES FROM ZOROASTER
ture, which claws and tears the gluttonous in one of
Hell's circles.
The poet is more imaginative than the man of Galilee.
He is likewise more just, for it cannot be that he who
steals a dollar shall suffer as Nero, who murdered by
scores. If there be punishment for an offense, it should
be meted out to the offender according to the magnitude
of the crime.
It is noteworthy that while Matthew copies a part of
the Lord's prayer from Zoroaster,^^ in which he says,
"Our Father, thine is the kingdom, thine is the power,
and thine is the glory," etc., he yet prays the Lord to
"lead us not into temptation." As if the Lord would
do such a thing. But what is still more noticeable is that
neither Zoroaster, nor Jesus, nor Paul, seem to have a
clear conception of Heaven. The Persian wants to dwell
in the happy abode of Ahura; the Galileean says, his
"Father's house has many mansions ;"i^ Paul says, "he
has a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens." (2d Corinthians, 5) And Paul
adds that the "faithful will be caught up in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air."^''
§ 4. If there be such a place as Heaven, it is of such
infinite importance to mankind that it would seem as
15 Yasna 53.
i^The proper translation of that sentence is: "TKere
are many rooms in my Father's house." Does any sane
man believe that God lives in a house ? Is it a brick, stone
or marble house that He lives in? As if God lives in a
house !
1'^ Thess., ch. 4, v. 17.
HEAVEN HAS DOORS AND ROOMS 185
though we ought to have been given more particulars
about it. But we are told we shall be with God, there-
fore blessed and happy. Are we not with Him now on
this old earth ? We see Him here in all of His wonderful
works. Does any sane man expect to see Him face to
face? The face of the Infinite! That face! Is it a
thousand miles long, and ten thousand times that vast
reach? God is visible in the stars above, and in the
plants at our feet. Besides, is not this world good enough
for that wretched fault-finding animal, called man?
We have the most complete picture of Heaven found
in any inspired record, in Revelation, wherein John saw
a door opened in Heaven ^^ and beheld a throne, and God
sitting on the throne, and four and twenty elders, clothed
in white, and four beasts, with eyes in front and behind,
and those beasts, without rest, saying, *'Holy, Holy, Lord
God ;" and when the beasts said this, the four and twenty
elders fall down before the throne and worship Him who
sits thereon. But this is not quite all they do. Those
elders "cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
'Thou art worthy, O Lord! to receive glory, honor, and
power; for Thou hast created all things.' " ^^ This is
simply a cheap copy of an earthly monarch, and his court,
exaggerated considerably by the poet's heated imagina-
tion.
The Jew who wrote Revelation had probably read of
Zoroaster's audience or conference with Ormazd, and
IS They have doors in Heaven, Rev., ch. 4, and win-
dows. Gen., ch. 8, v. 6.
J 9 Rev., ch. 4.
186 ST. yOHN'S HEAVEN
simply surpassed the Dinkard in the extravagance of his
statements.
Is it possible to believe that the Great I Am, who has
millions of worlds to look after, can employ himself, or
be entertained by having four beasts, day and night (even
if they have power of speech), cry ''Holy, Holy, Lord,
God" ? Truly, such a God is not worthy of worship. Its
monotony would soon cause the whole performance to
grow tedious. A fifth-rate European King cuts a better
figure. Why belittle the Almighty with such stuflF and
nonsense? If Revelation be an allegory, intending to
teach virtue and show the doom of vice, the answer is
that the ridicule of the Almighty, and His throne, is so
great that it defeats its object.
The writer of Revelation says he saw ten thousand
times ten thousand (which would be about one hundred
million), and all these were saying, with a loud voice:
"Worthy the Lamb, riches 20 and wisdom, and honor and
glory" ; and ''every creature in Heaven and on earth, and
under the earth", said the same. The four beasts there-
upon said : "Amen." 21 But this tediousness was broken
after awhile; for war always makes exciting times; and
they had war in Heaven. That Irish Archangel, Michael,
and his angels fought the dragon, and his angels; and
"that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which de-
ceiveth the whole world, was cast out into the earth, and
his angels with him." 22 Here, again, we have Zoroas-
2^ Of course a Jew mentions "riches" first. But what
does Jesus want riches in Heaven for?
21 Rev., ch. 4.
22 Rev., ch. 12, V. 7 to 9.
DUALISM 187
ter's dualism; and if Revelation be true, that dualism
reaches from earth to heaven. It not only invades every
part of our world, but it dashes up against the very
throne itself. It looks as if sin is in the universe to stay,
for the devil himself was only bound for one thousand
years, and then turned loose for a season. ^^
If this be all they do in Heaven, will it not be somewhat
tedious to the great thinkers of our race ? Imagine Soc-
rates, and Aristotle, Newton and Kepler, Darwin and
Huxley, Franklin and Emerson, and multitudes of others
standing idly by and watching the daily and hourly per-
formance of the four and twenty elders, and the beasts,
before the throne. True, an eternity like that would be
much less painful than roasting in a furnace, but to quick
minds, only less in degree. Of course John really knew
nothing more about Heaven than any other wild dreamer.
How could we know about it ?
We do not believe that Zoroaster held a conference
with the Almighty, nor do we believe that John saw the
throne. Neither Jesus nor Paul gave us a glimpse of
Heaven. How could they? For they had never been
there. If, then, there be such a place as Heaven, what
then?
Reader, we make to you the following suggestion : Fol-
low the Golden Rule of Zoroaster, and Jesus, and pa-
tiently await thy summons across the river.
23 Rev., ch. 20.
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCLUSION.
The story of Zoroaster and his religion is ended. He
brought a new doctrine into the world, or at least so in-
tensified an old one as to link his name inseparably to it
forever.
No history of religions can ever be written without
giving him many pages. That he labored sedulously for
the material and spiritual welfare of his people no one
who will read his words can gainsay. There was, it
would seem, a sharp necessity for his appearing as a
teacher and guide to the Iranians, and he came in the
fullness of time.
The morals of his people were made the better for his
coming. He did not make war on the old Aryan Gods,^
but simply passed them by. He taught that there was one
God, Ahura-Mazda, the maker of Heaven and Earth,
who would reward man for good deeds, and punish him
for bad ones. Where he got this idea, I cannot tell. It
may have been announced before him, but if so, that
feebler voice is drowned in the great ocean of Zoroaster's
fame and name.
^ The old Aryan Gods were the sun, moon, earth, the
winds and the waters. The Jews burned incense to the
sun, the moon, and the planets. 2d Kings, ch. 23, v. 5.
188
m YEARS AGO 189
Truth was to him a jewel beyond price or measure.
And he so insisted and urged upon his people that they
should always, and everywhere, refrain from falsehood
and cling to the truth ; that for more than two thousand
years after his death it was considered an infinite disgrace
for a Persian to tell a lie. Four hundred and fifty years
before Jesus' day the historian, Herodotus, mentions this
as a pleasing trait of the Persian character.
One hundred years ago, there were a few scholars,
who claimed that Zoroaster was only a myth; that no
such person ever lived; but that class has been over-
whelmed by proofs to the contrary. In truth, there is as
much certainty of his identity as that Moses, or Joshua,
or Plato lived. But this knowledge came to us at a late
day. Three hundred years ago Europe slumbered in
profound ignorance of a great mine of knowledge await-
ing the antiquary.
True, Aristotle, and after him Plutarch, and others,
had written of Persia, and her religion, but during the
middle ages all interest therein died out.
We now know that the founders of the Christian re-
ligion studied Zoroaster, and drew silently, but largely,
from him, in forming their own.^ I have shown this in
the preceding pages, and if I live to write the life of
Buddha and Jesus, will exemplify that matter still further.
Belief does not change facts, as the following will
illustrate: Captain Cook, when circumnavigating the
globe, gave some iron nails to the natives of Tahiti. The
large nails they believed to be the mothers of the little
2 Intro- Vendidad, p. 15
190 JESUS AND ZOROASTER— MEN
ones, and they placed the little ones in the ground, believ-
ing that they would grow. By the side of them they
planted some of the mothers, in the belief that a new
generation of small nails would be born. But their belief
did not change the facts. The nails, big and little, to their
infinite disgust and chagrin, all rusted.
I close by saying that this book is not intended as an
attack upon any form of faith. Every man has his own
views and ideas about matters beyond the grave. I have
mine ; and while I treat Jesus and Zoroaster as men, yet
I hold that the creed of Zoroaster is, in all essentials, the
Golden Rule. For if good thoughts, good words, and
good deeds will not unlock the shining Gates, then noth-
ing else will, or can.
As age creeps on, let us not doubt that beyond the
myths and delusions of man, and all his follies, there is a
power and an Intelligence somewhere, and that if it be
for man's weal, that he shall be crowned with immortal
Hfe, where happiness shall ever bloom, then blessed be
that power, and that Intelligence. But if that Great In-
telligence, which we call God, for reasons and purposes
known only to Himself, shall deem it best that this life
shall "be the Be all and the end all," then without ques-
tioning, let us say : "Thy ways, O Lord ! are higher and
better than man's ways; and thy judgments are alto-
gether just and right."
THE END.
PART SECOND
How the Hebrews Copied from the
Hindu Bible
HOW THE HEBREWS COPIED
FROM
THE HINDU BIBLE
CHAPTER I.
FOUR GREAT RELIGIONS! BRAHMANISM, BUDDHISM, CHRIS-
TIANITY, MOHAMMEDISM. WHEN INVENTED
TWO NEW DEITIES.
§ I, The highways of human progress are lined with
the skulls of the slain, for opinion's sake. But in Amer-
ica, and some other favored spots, the worst that can
befall a plain talker, is to impale him on a few caustic
sentences. But the days of stakes, faggots, and
thumb-screws, for him who is not with the majority,
are, it is hoped, happily past forever. Nevertheless, that
despicable thing called intolerance, still lifts its slimy
head, active in all religions. Narrow-minded bigots
are found everywhere; and the best way to treat them
is to hit them hard, as you would any other reptile, then
watch them squirm.
At present, four great religions are seeking to domi-
nate the world. In truth, they almost hold our globe
in their grasp. Strange as it may appear, not one of
these religions, except Brahmanism, was in existence
twenty-five-hundred years ago. Brahmanism is, however,
191
192 BRAHMANISM OLDER THAN THE FLOOD
old. It is older than the Flood. Poets were composing
it, centuries before Moses was found, by his mother, in
the bulrushes.^
The next in point of age, of these four religions, and
the greatest in numbers, is Buddhism. Its founder,
Buddha, was a Hindu prince, born about 500 years be-
fore Jesus.2 More than thrice the number of all the
people now living on our earth, have held to the doc-
trines, and died in the faith of Buddha. And more
than three hundred millions of people, now living in
Thibet, Nepaul, China, Japan, Assam and Ceylon, yet
cling to the Buddhistic faith. But the land of its birth,
after nearly fourteen hundred years of struggle, thrust it
forth, and installed Brahmanism in its place.
The next religion is that of Christianity. Jesus, its
founder, was born about 1900 years ago. But his re-
ligion, like that of Buddha, has been driven from the
land of its birth, and the flag of the conqueror waves
victoriously over Jerusalem and Galilee. His followers
are divided into two great unfriendly, and almost warring
camps, protestants and papists; the former numbering
about seventy or seventy-five millions, the latter about
eighty-five millions. The protestants, in matters of doc-
trine or creeds, are again subdivided into numerous
jarring sects ; each one insisting that the other is wrong
in its interpretation of what is called **Holy Writ." In
1 Some writers think that Moses was the bastard child
of Pharaoh's daughter.
2 Some people maintain that Buddha was born about
543 years B. C. His followers now number three hun-
dred to three hundred and fifty millions.
CREED MAKERS 193
fact, creed-makers have been busy with the New Testa-
ment for the last 1800 years, and are not done yet.
Both wings of this procession, papists and protestants,
number, therefore, about one-tenth of the population of
the globe. They both believe the old traditions of Moses,
and the Hebrews, and later the Jews; and those tradi-
tions form a very large part of the christian Bible.
TWO NEW DIETIES.
Moreover, what challenges our attention is that the
christians brought forth, for the world to consider, two
new deities, until then unknown. Jesus, and the Holy
Ghost, had never been seen, known, or heard of until
some 1900 years ago. In fact, no one to this day has
given, nor can give a reasonable definition of what the
Holy Ghost is. If we say it is the Holy Spirit, or the
Sanctifier of Souls, is not that definition applicable to
God? Is not God a Spirit? If so, then is not the Holy
Ghost and God one and the same? If not, what then
is the Holy Ghost? Where did it live, before the book
of Matthew was written? Where was the Holy Ghost
when Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the
seventy elders, saw the God of Israel up there on the
mountain? ^ There are some other questions to ask: If
the Holy Ghost is an actual existence, and was here "in
the beginning," why did it not save Eve from the serpent
there in the Garden?^ It is said Jesus was in heaven
when the foundations of the earth were laid. If so, why
3 Exodus XXIV, 9th and loth.
^ There are those who maintain that the Holy Ghost is
of the female gender.
194 JEWS HAD BUT ONE GOD
did He not interpose in that Eden difficulty, and thus
save us a world of trouble? What is the use of these
new Deities ? Can not man approach his maker directly ?
Must we do business in the ante-room with the office
boy? Did the Almighty, after running the world about
four thousand years, according to the record, find him-
self incompetent; and was it necessary to call in these
new Gods, as helpers?
§ 2. At Jesus' appearance on earth, we know thai the
Jews had but one God, and they have only one God yet.
Since Jesus' advent we have a Trinity. But the Brahmans
had a Trinity more than a thousand years before ours.
Did we copy from them? In fact, the Brahmans, in
ignorant times, had numerous Gods. As far back as
four thousand or forty-five hundred years B. C. they
had thirty-three Gods; and divided the universe into
three regions, and assigned eleven Gods to each division.
They then added Prajapati, the thirty-fourth God, as the
Lord of all creatures. They then fell back upon a Trin-
ity; and at last dispensed with all except Brahma as the
Creator; but gave him a generous staflf of dignitaries.
MOHAM MEDANISM.
The latest religion invented is that of Mohammedanism,
which is now about thirteen hundred years old. Before
Mohammed's day, the Gods in Arabia were numerous,
but Allah was the chief.
Mohammed tells us that the Angel Gabriel came to
him one night, and, holding a silken scroll before him,
bade him read what thereon was written. On the scroll
he read, **Man walketh in delusion here, but that the
Lord, the Most High, will call him hence some day to
MOHAMMED'S FOLLOWERS 195
give an account of himself." Frightened at this, and
thinking the incantation, a portent of evil, he related the
mysterious occurrence to his wife, who consoled him
with the hope that the messenger was of Heaven, and
that God had a mission for him. Such was the feeble
beginning of a religion that to-day numbers from no
to 140 millions of followers; and they hold Jerusalem
and Galilee firmly against all comers. Mohammedanism
has just one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.
§ 3. Moses spent all his mature years in battling
against a plurality of Gods. Is it not, therefore, startling,
that Christians, who claim to be the legatees, and benefi-
ciaries of his statutes and commandments, and wiser than
all others, should invent two new Deities? And this in
opposition to the very first commandment, leveled against
polytheism, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have
no other Gods before me"? (Ex. 20.) Yet Jesus, we
are told, is one with God, and that man can only approach
the Almighty through him as our intercessor.
THE TRINITY.
All Christians are baptized in the name of three Gods :
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. We are told that these
three form the Trinity, the Triune God, the Godhead.
The Hindus, as we have seen, invented the first Trinity;
and the Hindoos preached it, believed in it; and if the
frosts of age have any claim to our reverence, let us first
bow to the three-faced God of the Ganges. The Hindoo
trinity long preceded this invention of 1900 years ago;
and it is a real pity that they could not have obtained a
patent on their trimurti, for it would have saved our
divines from many a grotesque position, many a foolish
196 CHRISNA, THE HINDU SAVIOR
speech. But even the Hindoos might have had trouble
at the Patent Office, for the Egyptians seem to have,
previously, invented a trimurti — Osiris, Typhon and
Horus. We, however, copy more from India than from
Egypt. Brahma is the Hindu Creator; Vishnu or
Chrisna is their Christ, their Preserver, or Saviour. Siva
is their God of destruction.^
The Hindoo Chrisna suffered many Avatars (incarna-
tions) for the benefit of the Hindoos; Jesus only suf-
fered once for all the world. There are yet, in India,
many pictures of their trinity or trimurti, showing a
three- faced God; one looking east, one west, and one
south.
The Christians have never yet gone to the extent of
fixing up a three-faced God ; but they might as well, for
they preach and teach three Gods, and circulate innumer-
able pictures of one of them. Yet if the Holy Record
be true, two of our Deities have been seen; for Moses
affirms, in chapter 33, Exodus, that he talked with the
Almighty ''face to face, as a man speaketh to a friend." ^
If the above were found in the Hindoo Bible, people
would sneer at it. Is it not preposterous that about 3400
years ago, the Creator and Ruler of millions of worlds,
^ Sir Wm. Jones, the greatest oriental scholar that
England ever produced, was a judge ten years at Cal-
cutta; and in one of his lectures he says, that on page
375 of a great Sanskrit dictionary, compiled twenty-one
hundred years ago, ''Chrisna" is called the "Divine Spirit
in human fonn."
^ I cannot help thinking that if it had not been for
Exodus XX, Moses might have taken a "snap-shot" at
his "friend," and thus saved us a world of imaginings.
NOT AN ATHEIST 197
was found or seen, out there in the bushes, talking "face
to face" with that old blood-stained Hebrew? We shall
see, further along, that Buddha did not believe this. He
ridiculed such a preposterous thing.
Now, lest I be branded as an Atheist, I will at once,
and without reservation, write down my creed: I firmly
believe in one omnipotent, omniscient Maker and Ruler
of the universe. I believe that Jesus was a man ; begot-
ten and born after the manner of other men. I have no
doubt but that he was nailed to the cross, for the Jews
in his time murdered people in that way. I do not be-
lieve in three Gods, or two Gods. The Trinity, there-
fore, is eliminated. Let us pass on.
THE UPANISHADS.
§ 4. It is just one hundred years since a Latin trans-
lation of the Upanishads'^ was published by Anquetil
Duperron,^ a Frenchman, who had previously trans-
lated into French the Zend Avesta — the Persian Bible.
Duperron's translation would, probably, have fallen
quite still-born had it not been for that wonderful lin-
^ It is difficult to render an exact and unquestioned
definition of the word Upanishad. Some Orientalists
maintain that Upa-ni-shad comes from the root "Sad,"
preceded by the preposition -ni (down) and upa- (near),
expressing the idea of a school where the pupils sit down
near the teacher for instruction. Others claim that
Upanishad means theological, or philosophical doctrine.
Again it is claimed that it means destruction of passion,
and ignorance. The Upanishads undertook to set forth
the theory or, in other words, to account for the creation
of the world.
^ Duperron made his translation about the year 1775,
1«8 RECORDS 4,000 YEARS B. C.
guist and classical scholar, Sir William Jones. That
great Englishman was master of some thirty languages,
including, among others, Greek, Arabic, Persian, San-
skrit, Runic, Hindoo, Pali, Chinese, Syric and Tibetan,
and he could write French with all the vigor and fluency
of Duperron himself.
In 1783, Sir William was appointed judge of the Su-
preme Court of Bengal; and directly after arriving in
Calcutta, founded the Asiatic Society, thereby enlisting
many oriental scholars in Europe to engage in a critical
study of the laws, the customs, the language and the re-
ligion of India. To their amazement, they found a sacred
literature, vast and exhaustless, from every point of
view. Thenceforward the study and search of Hindu
literature began ; and the end is not yet.
To their further amazement, they found from these
old records, running back 3000 to 4000 years B. C, that
India was peopled by a race with strong religious in-
stincts, and with mental endowments as keen as their
numerous progeny, who left their early homes in India
and settled in Europe.
THE ARYANS.
Diligent research, within the last one hundred years,
has reasonably well established the fact, that, more than
5000 years ago, the Aryans, then undivided, were occupy-
but translations had previously been made by Dara Shuka
and others as early as 1657. Europe, however, turned a
deaf ear upon all of these, and it was not until Sir Wil-
liam Jones was sent as a judge to Bengal, that a warm
interest was awakened in the religion and history of the
East.
HINDUS OUR ANCESTORS 199
ing that large territory stretching east from Bactra, and
reaching beyond the Indus.
When that populous hive swarmed, there went forth
the Persians, the Kelts, the Greeks, the Teutons, the
Latins and the Slavi. Those people, whom we now call
Hindoos, our ancestors, many generations back, remained
at the old homestead. They were then blue of eye, with
straight hair and fair of skin; but many generations
passed under the hot sun of the Ganges, has left them
almost as brown and dark as our American Indians.^
But those Hindoos of whom we have been speaking
were not the first or original inhabitants of India. When
the Aryans entered Punjab, they found a dark-skinned
race already in possession of the soil. And they made
war upon those men of color, and pressed them back.
The American people, for now nearly three hundred
years, have done the same with the aboriginal tribes
found on this continent. The Jews some 3400 years ago,
slaughtered right and left, without mercy, to obtain
possession of the Holy Land. As if a land can or could
be holy, where people are murdered for its possession.
In India the victorious Aryans reduced those dark-
visaged people (Varna or colored) to serfdom. They
called them Dasas or Dasyus; and, later on, when the
Brahmans divided society into four great casts, or divi-
sions, these Varna (colored) men, were called Sudras,
and were placed at the very lowest round of the ladder.
® When Columbus first saw the natives of Cat Island,
he supposed he had touched the shores of India, and
hence called the natives Indians.
200 THE SUDRAS
THE SUDRAS.
§ 4. But the Sudras themselves had been trespassers
and pillagers. For back of them, and beneath them in
vigor and intelligence, there once lived in India, in the
long ago, a race whom those Sudras, or at least their
ancestors, had dispossessed. Just when the predecessors
of the Sudras were conquered and driven to the hills, or
slaughtered, it is now impossible to tell. It may have
been ten thousand years ago; and possibly even beyond
that period ; and again it may have been much less. One
thing is certain, it was centuries before the Hebrews
leveled the walls of Jericho by the tooting of rams*
horns. That Jericho affair, if the chronology of the
Hebrew Bible be correct, was only about 1450 years B. C.
And at that time India and Egypt were the two focuses
of intelligence and civilization. The hymns of the Rig-
veda had been sung for centuries in India, and Osiris,
the God of the Egyptians, was holding his court for the
trial of souls, as far back, at least, as 2300 years B. C.
Whence came those Sudras, whom the Hindoos con-
quered? But a more difficult and puzzling question lies
back beyond that: Whence came those Aborigines,
whom those Sudras dispossessed? The traces of those
primitive people, who left their stone axes and their flint
arrow-heads, are unmistakable evidences that a primitive
race of men were once in possession of India, as the
flint arrow-heads and stone axes are proof (even had we
no better evidence) that a savage race once held sway in
Britain.
A WORLD STRIFE.
The Hindoos held India fast in their grip for more
PHYSICAL FORCE RULES 201
than four thousand years ; but England now has her grip
on them, and it will be only because of the vast multi-
tudes of Hindu people that they will be saved from the
fate of the Sudras. But even their vast numbers may not
save them. Physical force has ever ruled the world,
from the lowest to the highest forms of life. It is always
the survival of the strongest. For the disappearance of
the weaker race is still going on, in every part of the
earth.
"The lizard feeds on the ant, and the snake feeds on
the Hzard; the rapacious kite on both. The fish-hawk
robs the fish-tiger of that which it had seized. The
shrike chases the bubul, which did chase the jeweled
butterflies; till everywhere each slays, a slayer, and, in
turn, is slain. Life living upon death. Thus this fair
show veils one vast, savage, grim conspiracy, of sicken-
ing murder, from, the worm to man, who himself kills
his brother." i<^
But notwithstanding the ferocity in man's nature, and
his disposition to be a marauder and a plunderer, he
has always, as far back as we can trace him, been a wor-
shipper of gods and goddesses, big and little, high and
lofty, as well as low and groveling.
Nations are only aggregations of individuals, and they
plunder and rob, on gigantic scales. Look at Russia
plundering China ; see the butcheries of England in South
Africa. Why is America slaughtering the people in the
Philippine Islands? Why did France murder the Sulus;
and why is Germany, with shotted cannon, seeking pos-
^0 Arnold's Light of Asia — book first.
202 INDIA HAD NO GREAT WARS
sessions in every place where she finds a people too weak
to withstand her ? These lists might be greatly extended.
When nations murder, it is called war. Diplomacy is
only another name for swindling on a huge scale. All
these nations just mentioned are called Christian nations,
and claim to follow the precepts of the Man of GaHlee.
INDIAN HISTORY IS MEAGER.
§ 5. India, which is as large as all of Europe, Russia
alone excluded, never heard of Jesus, or, at least, never
claimed to follow his religion; yet India, for the last
four-thousand years, has made no wars of conquest ; and
Brahmanism and Buddhism have been her religions dur-
ing all those centuries. It is true that Alexander the
Great, about three hundred and twenty-five years B. C,
invaded India, and those people defended themselves the
best they could; but that was not a war of their own
seeking.
India has no history of great wars and great conquests.
Her chronology is provokingly, and lamentably deficient.
But we catch glimpses of her people, here and there, from
the Brahmanas, the Mantras, and the Upanishads. For
forty centuries past, they have been an intensely religious
race; worshiping those great visible objects of nature,
that call forth the glowing admiration of every devout
soul. Like all other peoples, their primitive worship was
rude and uncouth, and consisted largely in offering sac-
rifices to the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the
waters and the winds. But they did not sacrifice unto
devils, as did the Jews, mentioned in chapter 32 of Deu-
teronomy.
There are to-day more than two hundred and forty
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 2(^
millions of people in India, and for more than three thou-
sand five hundred years that country has been a populous
hive. Why is it that, in all this lapse of centuries, it
has cut so small a figure in the world's changing history ?
Her people were and are intellectual; they are moral,^^
they are industrious.
What then is the reason that they have never taken a
position in the world commensurate to their abilities and
their population? The answer is not far to be sought,
and is easily given : Religion and philosophy have fully
occupied the Indian mind. Moreover, they lack, and
have ever lacked, that organ called combativeness : They
are not, and never have been, a quarrelsome and fighting
race. True, there are traces, in the Veda, of internal dis-
sensions ; but they were never covetous of the lands and
wealth of neighboring nations. The great mystery of
creation and man's existence on earth was of more im-
portance to them than armies and empires. Their relig-
ion, for generations, has taught them that it is sinful
to take life; even the life of a worm. The Brahmans
taught this long before Buddha was born ; and Buddha's
religion was even more tolerant and peaceful.
11 I know it is claimed that they worship Juggernaut,
and do many other lawful things — but let the reader wait
a bit and see further along about that.
CHAPTER II.
BRAHMANISM AND THE MOSAIC RELIGION FURTHER COM-
PARED.
§ I. Brahmanism precedes Buddhism by so many cen-
turies that it is well to glance back at it, for it is vener-
able with age. Its dogmas are numerous and are writ-
ten in many books. In fact, the sacred literature of India
is eight times greater in extent that the Hebrew Bible.
Who founded this vast religious system, no one can tell.
It is evident that it grew by accretions, from age to age,
for no one person in a long life could build an edifice
so imposing. But that its foundations were laid in the
dim and misty past is beyond all controversy. If we
wish to fix a date for it, we are surely safe in saying that
when Abraham was sitting in his tent door, on the plains
of Mamre, about thirty-eight hundred years ago,^ the
hymns of the Rig- Veda had been sung for centuries on
the banks of the Indus, and probably in the groves along
the Ganges. How long the Hindu Bible had then been
in process of composition will probably never be known.
It is a book of books ; and like our own Bible, was com-
posed by different persons living centuries apart. Like
the Hebrew inspired ( ?) seers, the Hindu inspired ( ?)
I Genesis, Chapter i8.
204
CONFLICTING CREEDS 205
seers sometimes involved themselves in contradictions.
Yet the Jews in composing their Bible had somewhat
the advantage, for they were fewer in numbers, and
occupied only a small skirt of territory along the eastern
end of the Mediterranean. But India is vast, and her
people for forty or fifty centuries have been numerous.
We may, therefore, conclude that more hands held the
tiller of the Hindu craft than the Jewish bark; hence
more liability to confusions and discrepancies and con-
tradictions. Moreover, we must not be too critical in this
matter. Are we sure that our own house is not made
of glass? For in my own America those who follow
the Man of Galilee as the founder of their faith must
not forget that there are here conflicting creeds and be-
liefs in very sharp antagonism.
OUR CHURCHES QUARREL.
To illustrate : The Presbyterians have quarreled among
themselves, and with every other sect for four hundred
years over the question of infant damnation, and still do
not agree. As if the Almighty had nothing else to do but
roast babies in furnaces of fire because He had not elected
them to go to Glory. If this infernal doctrine were
found in the Hindu Bible, we would lift up our hands
in holy horror. But as it is a supposed Christian doc-
trine, we endure it ; and some mental deformities profess,
in their sterner moods, to even believe it.
The Roman Catholic church is as inimical to the so-
called orthodox churches to-day as Brahmanism was to
Buddhism, when the latter was driven forth after cen-
turies of struggle. And the orthodox churches ^ would,
The so-called orthodox churches are the Methodists,
206 HARSH THINGS SAID OF INDIA
if they could, at once and forever wipe out and abolish
Catholicism.
Many harsh things have been most unjustly charged
against the people of India. It has been said that "no-
where in the world are luxury and licentiousness carried
so far." 3 That is too sweeping. It is no more true than
it would be to make the same charge against the people
of France, or England, or against the people of my own
country. In India there are, especially in great cities,
black spots where lust, lewdness and debauchery prevail.
The same may be said of London, Paris, New York and
Chicago. As to luxury, the rich, and especially the ex-
travagantly rich, everywhere loll supinely and roll along
voluptuously. It is the same old story here and in India
as well. The rich man "is clothed in purple and fine
linen, and fares sumptuously every day." ^
§ 2. While it is true that there is a class of ultra
ascetics in India who hold that the body is the great
enemy to spiritual progress, and therefore macerate
and mutilate it and cause it to suffer in many ways ; yet
the masses of the people there are struggling to extract
enough from the soil to feed and nourish the bodies of all.
INDIAN ASCETICISM.
There are more than two hundred and fifty millions of
Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, etc. But I
do not allege that the Roman Catholics are not good
people.
3 I allude to J. F. Clark's Ten Great Religions : title,
Brahmanism. § 2.
* Luke, 1 6th chapter, verse 19.
ASCETICISM IN INDIA 207
people in India,^ and of this vast number forty millions
or more are engaged in agriculture alone. In all great
populations there will be found some who are mentally
deformed. They are possessed with hallucinations and
delusions. The fakirs of India were of this class ; their
asceticism being so extreme and nonsensical that some
of them ate their food naked ; some wore their hair mat-
ted; some shaved their heads and faces; others slashed
their bodies with knives ; while some bored holes in their
tongues, or plucked out an eye. Possibly his eye had
offended him, and if so, Jesus copied him; for he said,
''If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from
thee." ^ Some wandered through mountains and slept,
like beasts, in gloomy caverns. Others scattered ashes on
their heads, or fasted until their bodies became withered
and wasted.
Moses, it is said, fasted forty days without even water
to drink. (Exodus 34.) Jesus also fasted forty days
(Matt. 4 and Luke 4), and John the Baptist was some-
thing of an asectic himself, for he lived "in the wilder-
ness upon locusts and wild honey." '^
Those Brahman ascetics lived in the woods and caves
that they might escape the miseries of metempsychosis
(transmigration) and finally reach the joys of Nirvana
(heaven.) Moses, John the Baptist and Jesus were
simply copying them. Why did John the Baptist preach
and teach in the wilderness, subsisting meanwhile on
^ Of the two hundred and fifty millions, there are forty
millions of Mohammedans.
«Matt. V, 29.
^ The best attested case of fasting is that of Dr. Tan-
208 THE HINDU BIBLE
locusts and wild honey, unless to make sure that he might
reach the eternal camping-ground in safety?
THE RIG- VEDA.
§ 3. The Rig- Veda, the divine revelation to the Hin-
dus stands to Brahmanism about the same as the Pen-
tateuch does to the subsequent parts of our Hebrew Bible.
One difference being that the Pentateuch says that God
talked to Moses,^ while the divine revelation to the Hin-
dus is expressed by the word Sruti, "heard" or hearing.
Another difference between these two old Bibles is as to
their respective ages. The transactions in Exodus, if its
chronology be correct, took place about 1491 years B. C.
The oldest hymns of the Rig- Veda date back 2400 years
B. C.^ And prose always precedes poetry in the history
of our race.
We know that the separation of the Aryan Persians
from the Hindu Aryans took place more than 4300 years
ago. They were down there in the Punjab, or on the
ner of Chicago. He insisted that it was possible that
Jesus fasted forty days. Tanner tried it. He had
watchers and guards, and the doctors took his weight,
temperature and pulse every day. At the end of
forty days he was very weak and ready to collapse. The
angels did not come and minister to him as they did to
Jesus (Mat. 4, 11.) But a man gave Tanner a piece of
watermelon the moment the forty days had expired,
which revived him at once.
8 Exodus, chapter 33, where this amazing statement is
made, — but the Lord would only let Moses see His *'back
parts." Read the whole chapter to the last verse.
9 In this matter I follow Dr. Martin Haug. He thinks
the oldest of the Vedic hymns were composed 2400
RIG-VEDA 4,300 YEARS OLD 209
Jumna, at about the time Noah was In his ark, some
forty-three hundred years ago. They were then compos-
ing their Bible — the Rig- Veda. The flood did not reach
them.
While there is much wonderfully beautiful prose in
Genesis, there is not a single line of poetry. And it was
not until that marvelous ( ?) passage of the Red Sea that
Miriam and the women went out with timbrels and songs
to celebrate that extraordinary event (Exodus, 15) that
we discover any poetry.
Vedic poetry was surely sung as far east as the Ganges
at least five hundred years before Miriam's day, and in
the Punjab much earlier. The Hindu Bible and the He-
brew Bible both claim to have come to man by inspiration
from God ; and both Bibles teach that the favor of heaven
may be obtained by giving the Gods a meal of victuals.
But Leviticus tells us that no man who had a flat nose,
or was hunch-backed, or a dwarf, could oflfer God his
dinner.i^.
Both Bibles speak of "the God of Gods, and the Lord
of Lords." (Psalms, 136.)
years B. C. If this be true, it may help to answer some
puzzling questions as to the when-and-where of the hu-
man race. Respecting these dates, I am fully aware that
Max Miiller fixed the chanda period at about twelve hun-
dred years B. C. But he was careful to say that most
Sanskrit scholars would think his limit too short. Fur-
ther careful investigation has found his limit is in fact
too narrow. He limited the Sutra period to six hundred
years B. C. ; and the proof now is far back beyond that.
(See Goldstiicker's Manava-Kalfra Sutra, p. 78.)
1^ Leviticus, chapter 21, v. 8, 17 and 21, speaks of offer-
ing bread to God. Laws of Manu., 3, §§ 70 to 90.
210 SACRIFICES TO THE GODS
SACRIFICES TO THE GODS.
The Hindus offered to their deities milk, butter, boiled
rice, barley, rice cakes, etc., but they did not partake of
the "food before the Gods had eaten." ^^ The Hebrews
did not treat their God with the same consideration; for
as late as three hundred years after the exodus, when
offering a sacrifice, the priest's servant, "with a three-
pronged flesh-hook came, while the flesh was seething,
and thrust the hook into the pot, and all he could fish
up, the priest took for himself." ^^ fhe priests had be-
come even more ravenous than in the time of Moses,
for Aaron and his sons only got "the remnant of the
meat-offering." 13
There is another parallel between the Hindoos and
the Hebrews; for the Hebrew Bible mentions ten patri-
archs, who each lived to a very great age before the
flood; and the Hindoos have ten great sages who lived
in the early dawn of history .^^
FOUR GREAT CLASSES OR CASTS.
§ 4. With both the Hindoos and Hebrews, the priest-
hood greatly enlarged their borders. In this matter the
Hindu priests went to the most extravagant lengths.
They divided the people into four great casts or classes :
11 Satapatha-Brahmana, I Kanda, Vol. 12, S. B. E., p.
2. But see section 5, of this chapter, where bloody sacri-
fices were abolished.
1^1 Samuel, chapter 2. The word "Sacrifice" means,
in such connection, a meal offered to the Deity.
13 Leviticus, chapter 2, v. 3.
1^ Laws of Manu, chapter i. Creation. I might men-
tion that the Chinese also have a similar legend.
THE LORDLY BRAHMAN 211
the Brahmanas, the Kshatriyas, the Vaisyas, and the
dark-skinned Sudras. At the head of these four casts
stood the privileged, lordly Brahman. For generations
and for centuries he struggled to reach this alluring, daz-
zling summit. His leadership was gained, no doubt, in
the first instance, by his intellectual superiority. He was
keen, he was alert, he was devout; he placed himself in
the van of the moving column, and the masses blindly
followed him.
The Purohitas (family priests) devoted themselves
with such assiduity that they were soon bold enough to
say to the King: "Verily, the Gods do not eat the foods
offered by the King, who is without a Purohita ; where-
fore let the King, who wishes to sacrifice, place a Brah-
mana at the head. The kingdom of such a ruler is un-
disturbed. He attains to the full measure of life. A
wise Purohita is the guardian of his realm." (Aitareya-
Brahman, 8.) In short, the Brahman priests, from the
very first glimpses we get of them, were extremely perti-
nacious in their own behalf. They said : "The very birth
of a Brahmana is an eternal incarnation of the sacred
law, for he is born to fulfill that law and become one with
Brahman.
"A Brahmana," they said, "is born the highest on earth ;
the lord of all created beings for the protection of the
treasury of the law. Whatever exists in the world is
the property of the Brahmana. On account of the ex-
cellence of his origin, the Brahmana is, indeed, entitled to
it all. The Brahmana eats but his own food ; wears but
his own apparel ; bestows but his own in alms ; other mor-
tals subsist through the benevolence of the Brahmana."
It was incumbent on a Brahmana to study the sacred
212 NEVER PROVOKE A BRAHMAN
laws and duly instruct his pupils in them.^^ ''He who did
this was never tainted by sins arising from thoughts,
words or deeds." ^^ Even the King was warned not to
provoke a Brahmana to anger; for when angered they
told him they could instantly destroy him and his whole
army.
The next caste, in rank and importance to the Brah-
manas, was the military order, the Kshatriya. There are
indications that there was resistance by the Kshatriyas to
the lofty and self-asserted supremacy of the Brahmans.
But how long it continued, and when and whence it com-
menced, the records, so far as known, are silent. But
that there w^as a clashing, at least in sentiment, it is not
hard to believe. For how could a self-respecting man
admit without a controversy, that "a Brahman boy of ten
years and a Kshatriya of one hundred years stand to each
other in the relation of father and son" ; that between the
two, the Brahman was the father.^'''
The laws of Manu declare it to be the duty of the
Kshatriya to protect the people, offer sacrifies, study the
Veda, and to abstain from sensual pleasures. But a
Kshatriya, who came to the house of a Brahmana, was
neither called a guest nor personal friend ; yet the Brah-
mana might feed him after the Brahmana himself had
^^ We shall see presently that none but a *'twice-born
man" was allowed to study the sacred law. The Sudras
were forever excluded.
^6 Laws of Manu, chapter i. The last three words in
the above sentence sound supiciously, as if borrowed from
Zoroaster.
1" Chapter 2, Sloka, 135, Manu.
AN IMPASSABLE GULF 213
eaten. In fact there was a deep, wide, impassable gulf
between the Brahmanas and the Kshatriyas — as impassa-
ble as that in slavery times between the master and the
slave in my own country.
The next step in the descending scale was the Vaisya,
whose duty it was to tend the cattle, trade, loan money
and cultivate the land. He could also ofifer sacrifices and
study the Veda. But the stricken Sudra found all doors
shut and barred against him. He had, as we have
already seen, driven a weaker race from the soil; and
his own punishment was now at hand. The all-conquer-
ing Aryan had overcome him and reduced him to abject
slavery. "Such measure as ye shall meet, it shall be
measured to you again."
SLAVES IN INDIA.
The Brahmans, having mastered the Kshatriyas and
the Vaisyas, found it easy to put into their laws that
Svayambhu (The Self-Existent) had created the Sudra
to be a slave. That even if his humane master released
the Sudra from servitude, he was still a slave to a Brah-
mana, for that was innate in him.^^ And it was made
the King's duty to compel the Vaisyas and the Sudras to
perform the work prescribed for them, lest the whole
world should fall into confusion. It is said that Svayam-
bhu (The Divine Self-Existent), for the sake of the
prosperity of the worlds, caused Brahmana to proceed
from his mouth, the Kshatriya from his arms, the Vai-
sya from his thighs, the Sudra from his feet.^^
^^ Laws of Manu, chapter 8, §§ 413, 414 and 415, a
slave could own no property.
^^ Manu, §§6 and 31. Those parts of the body above
214 iTHE SECOND OR SPIRITUAL BIRTH
THE SECOND OR SPIRITUAL BIRTH.
§ 5. Every Brahman must, between his eighth and
sixteenth years, perform the sacrament of ^o Savitri (Ini-
tiation). FaiHng in this, he became an outcast, and was
so despised by the Brahmanas that they would not coun-
tenance him, even in distress. The ceremony of initiation
was a solemn, important religious event in the life of
every Aryan. It so sanctified him that thereafter he
was called a "twice-born man." He was admonished
that the Veda was the source of the sacred, revealed law.
That Sruti (revelation) and Smriti (tradition) must
not he called in question in any matter; since on those
two the sacred law was founded. That every twice-born
man, who treats with contempt those two sources of the
law, must be cast out as an atheist and a scorner of the
Veda. But they never burned atheists, as did the Chris-
tians formerly.
The novice was instructed that in seeking knowledge
of the divine law, the supreme authority was in revela-
tion (Sruti.) After tonsure, he was invested with the
sacred cord, which was generally worn over the left
shoulder and under the right arm. He was then given
a soft, smooth girdle of munga grass, and a staff, smooth
and handsome; and further instructed that by the study
the navel the Hindus said were pure ; those below, impure.
Manu, chapter 5, § 132.
20 This period was extended for the Kshatriya to 22
years; to the Vaisya, to 24 years. Beyond that period
any young man of the first three casts, who failed to per-
form the Savitri, became Vratya, — an outcast.
BURNT OBLATIONS 215
of the Veda, by vows, by purity, by burnt 21 oblations, by
recitations of the sacred texts, by offerings to the Gods,
to the Rishis and to the Manes, his body would become
fit for Brahman. 22
Jesus prescribed a different formula for sanctification.
For he said to Nicodemus, "except a man be born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God." (John 3, 5th.)
One of the things imposed upon the pious Brahman
was to offer oblations, morning and evening; and the
Jews, so Ezra tells us in chapter 3, ''offered burnt offer-
ings to the Lord morning and evening." The Jews were
simply copying the sacrifices of the Hindoos. The priests
21 This matter of oblations at the period of the Veda,
to win the favor of Heaven, was in vogue nearly all over
the earth. It had traveled from the East. The Egyp-
tians brought it with them when they migrated, and
Moses learned it from them. Is it possible that the offer-
ing of sacrifices by Moses, in the wilderness, did, in fact,
drive the swarms of flies from Egypt? (Exodus, chapter
8, 25 to 32.)
22 This is a singular passage: If we say the body, by
these austerities, becomes fit for union with Brahman,
does it not look as if Jesus, who taught the resurrec-
tion of the body, found some support here for his doc-
trine ? More than this : take section 27, chapter 2, Manu,
where it says, "By honest oblations, and the tying on of
the sacred girdle, the taint derived from both parents
is removed from twice-born men." Is the taint there
mentioned the same as
"In Adam's fall,
We sinned all."
If not, what is it?
216 NEW MOON SACRIFICES
of India offered burnt sacrifices to the New Moon, and
the Jews copied them in this also.^^
But no Sudra was allowed to offer a sacrifice. Nor
was he even permitted to hear the sacred texts repeated.
The Brahmana, on account of the superiority of his ori-
gin and his sanctification, legislated for all the people.
The Jewish priests, likewise, gave law to all their people.
HUMAN SACRIFICES.
Far back in the misty past, the Hindus offered human
sacrifices. Then they fell back from that and took a
horse; then dropped lower and took an ox; and then
a sheep ; then a goat ; and when the goat was offered up,
the sacrificial essence went out of it and entered the earth.
They dug for it and found rice and barley; and from
these "they gained as much efficacy as in all the five-fold
animal sacrifices." ^-i
The Jews, a thousand years later, were still shedding
blood to appease an angry God; and we are told that
Solomon, at the dedication of the Temple, offered twenty-
two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thou-
sand sheep, as a sacrifice unto the Lord.^^
I shall close this chapter by simply adding that the
twice-born Hindoo was directed to always bless his food,
and to rejoice with a pleasant face when he saw it, and
to pray that he might ever obtain it.^^ Now if he was
copied and followed, when Jesus broke bread and blessed
23 Bible, Book of Ezra, chapter 3, v. 5.
24 Satapatha-Brahmana, p. 50, Vol. 12, S. B. E.
25 I Kings, chapter 8, v 63.
"6 Manu, chapter 2, section 54. Mark 12, v. 34.
TABLE BLESSINGS 217
it, and is still copied by him who sits at his table and
asks God to bless the food he is about to take, then let
no man carp or sneer at either Jesus or the Hindoo.
For the man who can devoutly thank Heaven for his
daily bread must be of that class who are "the salt of
the earth."
CHAPTER III.
SOME FURTHER PARALLELS : HINDOO AND HEBREW SCRIP-
TURES.
§ I. There is, perhaps, no Bible of any faith, which
is to-day the same as when it was first put forth. The
Bible of the Hindoos is surely not the same that it was
originally, for it has suffered recensions, eliminations
and additions. The same may be said of the Jewish
Bible ; for it, likewise, has encountered recensions, elimi-
nations and supplements. Bibles are not written in a
day. It takes generations and centuries to construct
one. It took nearly seventeen hundred years to com-
plete the Jewish canon. The most ancient hymns of the
Veda are probably forty-three hundred and possibly five
thousand years old. The Hindu canon closed six or
seven hundred years B. C.^ It was, therefore, a long
period in building.
In nearly the last words of Manu, he challenges and
condemns all subsequent theologies, as follows: "All
those doctrines differing from the Veda, which spring
up, are worthless and false, because they are of modern
date." (V Manu, 12, § 96.) John closed the Jewish
^ It is possible that the Hindu canon closed eight or
nine hundred years B. C. See Manu 12, § 96.
218
THEOLOGIES ARE INVENTIONS 219
Bible in the year A. D. 96 (to 125) with these menacing
words: "If any man shall add unto these things, God
shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this
Book; and if any man shall take away from the words
of this Book, God shall take away his part out of the
Book of Life." 2
Theologies are the inventions of man ; and the inven-
tors of theologies are always dogmatic. It was so with
Moses and Manu. Moses was a man of blood and merci-
lessly slaughtered unbelievers. In one day he put three
thousand Hebrews to the sword for worshipping Aaron's
golden calf.^ Manu was much less bloodthirsty. If a
twice-born Hindu forsook the law, he became a despised
outcast, and all intercourse v^^ith him was strictly for-
bidden. But he was not slain. By repentance and con-
fession, by bathing and fasting, by austerities, and by
penances, he became freed from his guilt.
Time has dealt severely with both of these old faiths.
In Jerusalem to-day (1905) there are only about twenty
thousand Jews ; and these, mostly, pass the Mosaic rec-
ords by to study the Talmud. The Jews seem to have
deserved their hard fate. They are the scattered, unhon-
ored ^ remnants of an unlovely but famous people. Yet
2 I think the record is wrong here. There was no
New Testament canon until about A. D. 125 or later, and
it is hard to tell just when the poor, ignorant Ebionites
first approved it. It is possible that it was written as
early as A. D. 100. St. John must have heard of Manu.
2 Of course there are some few exceptions ; but as a
class, they are a despised race.
^ Exodus, 32 : y. 2y and 28.
220 JEWISH INFLUENCE SMALL
their old records, curiously enough, are studied and held
sacred by millions in Europe and America.
THE OLD MOSAIC RELIGION IS FADING.
But the old Mosaic religion is fading away. Of the
fifteen or sixteen hundred millions of people on the globe,
barely six million hold to that ancient Jewish supersti-
tion, and even these are so broken up in little isolated
groups and patches, that their influence, on passing
events, is scarcely a cipher. One foolish, senseless old
custom, that of circumcision, which they probably learned
from the Egyptians, they still follow with all the scru-
pulous care of Neophytes. Jeremiah told them ^ they
were uncircumcised in heart, and the day should come
when they would be punished by nations uncircumcised.
It would seem as if Jeremiah's prophecy had been and is
still being fulfilled. Very few Jews live in the country.
They mostly cluster in Ghettos, in the filthiest parts of
cities ; and their children, with unkempt heads and dirty
faces, throng the streets. Such are the descendants of
"God's chosen people."
§ 2. Neither the Hindu Scriptures nor the faith of
India have fared so badly as the Hebrews. But the
Rig- Veda has not escaped the gnawing tooth of time.*^
6 Jeremiah, chapter 9, v. 25 and 26.
■^ The word "Veda" means knowledge ; "Sruti," reve-
lation. Originally the Hindu Scriptures were divided
into three Samhitas or collections, viz. : Rig- Veda, Yagur-
Veda and Sama-Veda. Later the priests added another —
the Atharvan or Ather-Veda. These were the compo-
sitions of Seers, Rishis or poets, and were committed to
memory and recited to the people.
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST 221
It is not in vogue as much as formerly, but has been
largely supplanted by two great epics, the Ramayana and
Mahbharata.
John Milton's Paradise Lost, if it had been written
thirty-five hundred or four thousand years ago, is such
a story of Gods that it might have gone into the Hindu
Bible as a Sruti (revelation) from heaven; or into the
Hebrew Bible as a "Thus saith the Lord." The Jews
would have welcomed it gladly, because their valley of
Hinnon is surpassed by it in heat and sufifering. The
Hindus, because it pictures heaven in vivid colors and
gives it a better defined locality than the Rig- Veda. Be-
sides it would have supplanted metempsychosis effec-
tively.^
ALL EARLY RELIGIONS WERE BLOODY.
We have seen that the principal mode of worship by
the Hindus and Hebrews was by bloody oblations offered
to their Gods to appease their anger and to obtain their
favor. Those people lived about three thousand miles
distant from each other. And if it be true that the exo-
dus took place only 1491 years B. C., it follows that the
Hindus were sacrificing to their deities a thousand years
and more before the time of Moses. When and where did
they learn those heathenish rites ? Did the priestly class,
through long periods, invent and add to them, until now
8 It is not too much to affirm that Milton's great poem
has sounded the key note to many a modern sermon, yet
in the last fifty years hell has abated its rigors some-
what ; and if Revelation had not been reinforced by Para-
dise Lost, religion would, no doubt, ere this have ceased
wearing sables.
222 NO SWINE FLESH FOR EGYPTIANS
we find them elaborate enough to fill large volumes?
Did the Egyptians, before they migrated from the far
east, learn them there and carry them to the banks of the
Nile, where Moses copied them?
The Egyptians were particular in forbidding the use
of swine-flesh for food; and Moses copied them in this,
exactly.^ They also used fish which had fins and scales,
and Moses told the Hebrews they might do the same.
But he did not teach the doctrine of the immortality of
the soul. Yet the Egyptians taught it, and had taught
it nearly nine hundred years before the exodus. Nor did
Moses teach the transmigration of the soul, which the
Egyptians and the Hindoos both taught.^^
§ 3. Moreover, w^here two nations or peoples teach
identical doctrines of religion, in part or in full, it is
not unreasonable to suppose that the younger nation
borrowed from or imitated the elder one. But such a
copy is never exactly true in all its details. It was so in
this case. India, as we shall see, taught retribution in her
transmigration.
Egypt taught that the transmigrating soul traveled a
circuit, which it made every 2842^1 years; but that as
long as the body was preserved from decay, the circuit
^ Leviticus XI. as to swine and fish.
^^ After much study of this matter, I am satisfied that
the Egyptians were of Asiatic origin, and probably
learned, either directly or otherwise, the doctrine of
metempsychosis from the Hindoos. Many Egyptian
words are Sanskrit words, the ancient tongue of India.
But even Sanskrit had a predecessor.
MOSES' DOCTRINE NO FUTURE LIFE 223
did not begin. Thus many of the lower forms of Hfe
were escaped. Hence embalming and the mummies.
Moses, *'if learned in all the wisdom of Egypt," knew
of these things, and he must have known that Egypt
emphasized the doctrine of a future life ; yet he main-
tains a studied silence about it. But there was, and is,
one thing, be it said, to his immortal honor. He taught,
if the record be true, that there is only one Almighty
Being for man to worship. True, he offered sacrifices
with much mummery and foolishness, but he sacrificed
to only one God, the Father of us all. Whether this
belief in one God was the heir-loom of his race, or
whether he had thought out the problem by himself, or
whether Ezra^^ ^nd Nehemiah doctored up those old
Jewish legends and records, after the exile, and thus
made him a monumental hero; or whether an echo of
the Rig- Veda, or Hindoo philosophy, had reached his
ear, cannot, absolutely, be answered by any one. But we
shall not go far astray if we write down Ezra as an ex-
tremist; and Moses being already a prominent figure
in Jewish legends, was magnified by the facile pen of
the scribe into the colossal figure which we find in the
Pentateuch.
^^ A Sothaic period was 1421 years, and in two such
periods the soul was supposed to make its circuit.
^ 2 Ezra, one of the exiles to Babylon, was a fierce, un-
compromising Jew who, on his return, compelled all
those who had married Canaanite and Hittite wives to
give them up, and sent the wives away with their chil-
dren. Such a man is hardly trustworthy to transcribe
a great and important record. He called himself a ready
scribe. (Ezra, chapter 7, v. 6.)
224 AGE OF RIG-VEDA
AGE OF RIG-VEDA.
If the Rig- Veda was in process of composition twenty-
four hundred years B. C, then it reaches back to within
a few years of the flood. If so, the idea of one God, the
Creator of the heavens and the earth, was in the world,
and had been here nearly nine hundred years before
Moses appeared. But if twenty-four hundred be too
ancient a date for the commencement of the Hindoo
scriptures, and we lop off five hundred years, even then
the idea of one God was in India five hundred years be-
fore the exodus.
The following Vedic hymn,^^ which I am about to
quote, was composed and chanted in India probably one
thousand years before the Jewish exile.
1. "In the beginning, the only born Lord of all that
is, established the earth and the sky. Who is this God to
whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
2. He who gives life and strength, whose shadow is
immortality, whose shadow is death. Who is this God
to whom we shall offer sacrifice?
3. He is the only King of the breathing world. He
governs all, man and beast. He is the God to whom we
offer sacrifice.
4. He whose power these snowy mountains, the seas
and the distant rivers proclaim. He is the God to whom
we offer sacrifice.
5. He through whom the heavens were established,
nay, the highest heaven. He measures out the light. He
is the God to whom we offer sacrifice.
13 Rig-Veda X: 121
HINDU HYMN 225
6. He to whom the heavens and the earth, standing
firm, by his will, tremblingly look up. He is the God to
whom we offer sacrifice.
7. He who looked over the water-clouds which gave
strength ; He who is above all Gods; may He not destroy
us, the Creator of the earth, the Righteous, who created
heaven and the mighty waters ? He is the God to whom
we offer sacrifices."
§ 4. But neither the Hindoos nor the Hebrews were
satisfied with one God; and they were continually wan-
dering off after strange ones.^^ The Hindoos invented
Indra and Agni, and Varuna and others, to whom they
addressed their supplications. Varuna, being the Lord
of Punishment, bound the sinner with ropes.^^ They
begged mercy of him, as follows:
"Let me not yet, O ! Varilna, enter into the house of clay.
Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy!
I go along trembling like a cloud driven by the wind.
Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy!
Through want of strength, Thou strong, bright God,
have I gone to the wrong shore.
Have mercy. Almighty, have mercy!
Thirst came upon me when I stood in the midst of the
waters.
Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy!
Whenever we, O Lord, commit an offence before Thy
heavenly throne ;
"14 Zachariah, 587 B. C., strove to cut even the names
of the idols out of the land (Zacli. XHI, 2), and Malachi
threatened the wicked with fire. (Mai. IV, 2.) And Mi-
cah said, 'The Jews lie in wait for blood; even the
judp-es want rewards." (Micah 7.)
i^Manu IX, 308.
226 MOSES A UNITARIAN
Whenever we violate Thy holy law, carelessly.
Have mercy, Lord, have mercy!
Such was the prayer of a Hindoo three thousand
years ago. It sounds like a Psalm of David.
"O, Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger; neither chas-
ten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O
Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones
are vexed." ^^
Now, notwithstanding the fact that Moses labored so
long and diligently to establish the faith of his people
in one God only, yet the Christians, fifteen hundred years
later, as we have seen, brought forth two new Gods, one
of whom was, and is, a myth ; the other a gentle, kindly-
natured man. The Jews therefore when they nailed
him on the cross were simply following the teachings of
Moses, because they disbelieved in more than one God.
Moses said, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is
one Lord''; ^"^ and Mark tells us that when a Scribe asked
Jesus which was the first commandment of all, he re-
plied, "The first of all commandments is, 'Hear, O
Israel ! The Lord our God is one Lord.' " ^^
It would seem, therefore, that Moses and Jesus were
Unitarians ; and with such sponsors for a creed, it ought
to win the world to its side.
16 Psalm 6.
17 Deut, VI, 4.
18 Mark XII, 29.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GENESIS OF THE HINDU AND HEBREW BIBLES.
§ I. Old, mystical legends, about the origin of the
world, which in process of time have become embodied
in old records, have always held man, in every part of
our globe, as if in a vice, and demanded that he shall,
without question, believe whatever is written.
The Hindus were as peremptory, dogmatic and super-
cilious as the Hebrews. But they ventured beyond the
Jews, for, being more given to theorizing and philoso-
phizing, they invented a scheme, or system of creation,
as foolish, mystifying and improbable as the dogmatism
of Genesis. , "
The laws of Manu set forth that the universe existed
in the shape of darkness ; that the Divine Self-Existent
appeared, dispelling the gloom ; and with a thought, cre-
ated the waters and placed his seed therein. That the
seed became a golden egg, equal in brilliancy to the sun ; ^
and in that egg Brahma himself was born ; the progenitor
of the world. He resided in that egg one whole year;
and then, by thought, divided it into two halves ; 2 from
^ That is, equal in purity to the sun.
2 What an inconsistency is here ! It is so utterly non-
sensical and foolish, that it is on a parallel with a fairy
227
228 WILL MANAS SURVIVE?
which he formed the heavens and the earth. He then
"drew forth from himself" manas (the mind), which, it
is said, is both real and unreal. From the mind he "drew
forth egoism," which is self-consciousness; then the
Great One (the soul), and the five organs of sensation.
Manu tells us that Brahma can only be perceived by the
"internal organ." This "internal organ must be the
mind or soul ; for with no one, nor all, of the five senses
combined, can man perceive Brahma (God). A horse
has the same number of organs of sensation as man;
but has it that "internal organ?" On the other hand,
can it be proven that it has not manas also?
THE FIVE SENSES — WILL THEY SURVIVE?
I look out of my window and see the roses. I smell
their sweet fragrance. I hear the mocking-birds sing-
ing in the trees. I feel the balmy air. I take up a rose
and chew its leaves ; and yet all of these five senses will
be nailed in my coffin. Will manas, or egoism, survive ?
Hindoo philosophy answers that it will. J
Moses, on this all-important question, uttered no word.
Genesis also is silent. The "it" in Manu is the "internal
tale. If Atman or Brahma was already an existent be-
ing, why did he crawl into an tgg to be born ? Think of
the Creator of this world hived in an eggl The only
reason I can give is that Hindoo philosophers, after-
wards, when trying to explain the origin of things,
reached the conclusion that of all living things, there are
three origins only: That which springs from an tgg;
that which comes from a living being, and that from a
germ. Manu, chapter i ; also Upanishads, Vol. i, part
I, S. B. E., p. 94.
WHAT IS EGOISM f 229
organ." Is ''it" Egoism? And, if so, is Egoism some-
thing surpassing even the mind in excellency? Manu
says that Egoism is something Lordly ; ^ and if it be
drawn from the mind, what else can it be than the sub-
limated essence thereof? I shall not follow the subtili-
ties of Hindoo philosophy further, but merely add that
if the mind is in fact drawn forth from Brahma (God),
we may here find the reason that, being finally released
from metempsychosis, it becomes merged in, or goes
back to Brahma.
If this be wrong, and Egoism be greater than manas,
it may be that it is Egoism that is merged. Is not this
Hindoo doctrine the same as that taught in chapter
twelve, Ecclesiastes, where we are told that the Spirit
returns to God, who gave it? If Egoism or Manas be
the same as Spirit, then Solomon and Manu here travel
the same road.
By joining minute particles of himself with the five
organs of sensation, and the mind, Brahma, we are told,
created all beings ; and "in the beginning" assigned their
several names and conditions. Whatever quality, or
course of action, the Lord first gave to man, plant, or
brute; whether virtue or vice, truth or deceit, ferocity
or falsehood, each clung to its kind, plant or animal,
just as each season, of its own accord, assumes its dis-
tinctive marks.^
2 Manu I, 14. Some Hindoo philosophers maintain
that the soul was drawn forth from Brahma before the
mind, and that Egoism is simply the Ego or I.
^ If Ezra edited the Pentateuch, then Manu precedes
230 THE CREATION— TIME?
THE CREATION — TIME?
§ 2. The Hebrew Bible says, "In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth."
In the beginning of what? If it means in the begin-
ning of the world He created it, then it is tantamount to
saying that He created it — when He created it. Of
course this would spoil the beautiful rhythm of the sen-
tence. But if it means that he created the world only
six thousand years ago, it is very evident that the writer
had never studied geology or astronomy. For the ''tes-
timony of the rocks" makes the earth millions upon mil-
lions of years old. Its age is, in fact, so great that a
puny six thousand years is as a mole-hill to a mountain,
v^;^ . If the Almighty Father is from everlasting to ever-
^•^ lasting, then a thousand millions of years, and ten thou-
> sand times that, is only as a single grain of sand upon
the shores of myriads and myriads of oceans. Time
I never had a he ginning, and God did not create time.
4 It was, and is, coeval with Him. It was, and is, without
=- a beginning. Time was in this mighty universe of num-
berless worlds and suns when God was. It had no be-
ginning; it will have no ending. The angel may stand
^ with one foot upon the earth and the other upon the
J, sea, and "cry with a loud voice, that time shall be no
^ more," but time will not heed the angel. (Rev. X). In-
numerable suns will continue to shine, and worlds with-
"^ out number will continue to revolve in spite of the angel.
Ezra; but Manu, as we now have it, is a reduction of
an older work. Its present form is from 900 to 13CXD
years B. C. See Manu, chapter i, sections i to 30.
ASTRONOMY IS AGAINST GENESIS 231
Astronomy is also against Genesis, with its six thou-
sand years for the earth's creation. The eccentricity of
the earth's orbit has been calculated back to one million
years before Jesus' day, and while it is true that the shape
of its orbit has varied somewhat, yet its mean distance
from the sun is so unvarying and constant, that it has
not changed eight seconds in six thousand years.*^
Is it not about as absurd to insist that our earth is a
youngster, because Moses or Ezra, or some old Jewish
writer, of whom we know nothing, so wrote it down in
ignorance of the facts, as for some India writer to say
that Brahma housed himself a whole year in an egg?
Both of these old Bibles are full of absurdities, inac-
curacies and savagery. Both of them upheld slavery.
Moses told the Hebrews to buy their bond-men of the
heathen round about them, and the Indians, as we have
observed, reduced the Sudras to slavery. In fact, India
had several classes of slaves.^ Those Bibles were both
written in an age of idolatry and ignorance, when people
believed the earth to be flat. They were written when
polygamy was dominant, and both Bibles upheld it. In
this matter Solomon stands pre-eminent with his seven
hundred wives and three hundred concubines.'^
Moses said, "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
^ Dr. James Croll's great work on climate and time.
R. A. Proctor's article, Astronomy — Br. Ency., Vol. 2,
P- 795-
6 Leviticus XXV: 44. Manu 8: 413 to 417. The
bond-man bought of the heathen could never regain his
freedom. Neither could the Sudra.
■^ I Kings, XI, 3. I do not wonder that so many wives
"turned away his heart."
232 A SUDRA'S PUNISHMENT
hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning", stripe
for stripe." ^
Manu said, "Whatever Hmb of a Sudra does hurt to a
man of three higher casts, even that limb shall be cut
off."^ And if a Sudra struck a Brahma, he was to re-
main in hell one thousand years, but a twice-born man
might expiate his offense by supplications, fasting and
penances.
KNOWLEDGE AND THE SERPENT.
In chapter 2, Genesis, man is forbidden, under an
awful penalty, to eat of the tree of knowledge. But
without knowledge he would be as the beast of the field.
Without knowledge he would probably build a house
no better than the beaver. Now if the eating of the
forbidden fruit of that tree in Eden has given us the
mastery of viature, as we have it to-day, through the
gate of knowledge, thereby opened to us, then, instead
of vituperation and abuse, let the serpent which beguiled
Eve have a monument, and a lofty one.
As to this serpent dialogue with Eve (chapter 3), it
has heretofore been painted in colors immensely to the
disadvantage of the beguiler. Yet that serpent told the
truth, which God Himself immediately confirmed. For
the serpent said, "God doth know that in the day ye
shall eat of the forbidden fruit, your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil" (V. 5,
chapter 3). Soon thereafter, the Lord was walking '^^
^ Exodus XXI : 22 to 2y.
^ Manu 8 : 279 and 280, and Manu XI : 207.
^^ He must therefore have legs, or He could not walk.
THE LORD AND THE SERPENT 233
in the Garden, ''in the cool of the day." (The sun hav-
ing just been created, it blazed up probably too hot in
the middle of the day) and He questioned Adam about
this matter. Adam told the truth, like a man, and said,
'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave
me of the tree, and I did eat." The Lord thereupon
faced the woman : ''What hast thou done ?" The woman
(bless her) did not flinch. "The serpent beguiled me,'*
she said, "and I did eat." (Chapter 3, v. 13). There-
upon the Lord turned upon the serpent with these bitter
words: "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. Upon
thy belly thou shalt go ; dust shalt thou eat all the days
of thy life." The serpent kept his temper and made no
reply; and if that serpent was in fact a snake, he still
crawls on his belly. But was he not on his belly before
he met Eve? Did he have legs before God cursed him?
How is this? Who created that serpent? If this whole
thing be not a finely drawn allegory, we may well ask,
as God created every creeping thing, did He not also
create that serpent? If God did not create it, who did?
The serpent surely did not create itself.
Zoroaster, the great Iranian, taught that there were
two great creative beings: Ormazd and Aharman (God
and the Devil), who created and counter-created good
spirits and bad. And that this world is one great battle-
field, where the conflict will rage until Aharman, the
God of sin, is overthrown and destroyed forever.
THAT SERPENT COULD TALK.
Here in this Eden story the Lord uses language that
is entirely personal. The serpent could talk also, for he
234 DIALOGUE WITH THE SERPENT
held a conversation with Eve. Was this serpent Zoro-
aster's Aharman ; or are these chapters the inventions of
a romancer? However that may be, the Lord and the
serpent agree as to the effect of eating the forbidden
fruit. The serpent said their eyes would be opened, and
they would be as Gods, knowing good and evil ; and
after they ate the fruit the Lord said, "Behold the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil." "Now,
lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life
and eat, and live forever, I will send him forth from Eden
to till the ground from whence he was taken." ^^
The imagination of the poet is not always logical.
Adam is trusted with the tree of Life, and that tree is
in Eden (ch. 2, v. 9), and it was not forbidden to Adam,
for the Lord expressly said : "Of every tree of the Gar-
den thou mayest freely eat" (ch. 3, v. 16), except the
tree of knowledge. Suppose Adam had eaten first of the
tree of Life, would man's body have lived forever? Or
would it have worn out and withered and died as it does
now? It would look as if the solid facts are against the
romancer.
§ 5. Another little lapse of the poet in chapter 4 is
deserving of notice. When Cain for his crime was driven
forth to wander as a fugitive and a vagabond over the
earth, the Lord set a mark upon him lest any one finding
him might slay him. "And Cain went out from the
presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on
the east of Eden.^^
^^ Gen., chapter 3, verses 22 and 23.
^2 Chapter 4, v. 16.
THE NODITES 235
THE NODITES.
Now, at that time there were of the human family,
according to the record, only Adam, Eve and Cain in
existence. Yet Cain settles in the land of Nod; finds
that land peopled; falls in love with one of the young
women, marries her, raises a family of children, and
builds a city, which he names after his son Enoch. How
did those Nodites get on this earth ? There was no Gar-
den of Eden for them; no tree of life or tree of knowl-
edge for them. How did they get here? No dominion
over all the earth is vouchsafed to the Nodites. Yet they
did a good thing for the world, for they were not under
the general curse meted out to Adam.
There is no record against the Nodites for disloyalty
or disobedience; and it is probable that Seth, Adam's
other son, married a Nodite girl. He certainly would
do that in preference to marrying his sister. Besides, as
Cain had so prospered with the Nodites as to get a wife
and build a city, would it not be an inducement to Seth
to try his fortune there also?
CHAPTER V.
TWO FLOODS AND THE TRUE ARK STORY.
§ I. No one can write a book and hope to escape
criticism. The book of Genesis, and in fact the whole
Pentateuch, has been assailed by many persons and for
different reasons. But Pentateuch will stand, and it
ought to stand, not because it is historically correct in
all its details, but because it gives us the best conception
the Hebrew mind had of our Creator and of the creation
of the world.^ If that work were to be written to-day,
he would be a rash and careless historian who would
assert that the heavens and the earth and all animate
and inanimate things were created in six days. He would
study evolution 2 somewhat, and see what that tells him.
He would investigate the solar system, including the
nebular hypothesis, and instead of making this little
earth of ours the great central wonder of the skies, with
^ The Book as we now have it, is only about 2,485
years old. Some of the material which Ezra wrought
into his redaction, reaches centuries beyond that period ;
how many redactions it had suffered before it reached
him it is impossible to tell.
2 While I cannot believe that God hustled to get
through creating "in just six days," I maintain that he
is as much the creator when he sets the revolution ma-
236
BRAHMA'S DAY 12 MILLIONS OF YEARS 237
the sun a small affair whose sole purpose it is to give
us light, his mental vision would become enlarged
enough to detail the facts as we now know them to be.
He would tell us that the earth gets only a two-millionth
part of the light given off by the sun. And it is not
probable that Manu would write into the Hindu Bible
that Brahma, their God, whose day is twelve millions of
years and his nights of the same length, slumbers a day
and a night, and at the end of that period awakes and
begins the work of creating.^
These Bibles agree that darkness was here before light.
Genesis says: *The earth was without form and void,
and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Manu tells
us that it "existed in the shape of darkness, unknowable,
immersed, as it were, in deep sleep, and that the Self-
Existent One appeared, dispelling the darkness." ^ That
He thereupon created ten great Lords of created beings,
and "these created seven other classes of Gods, of meas-
ureless power."
A FISH THAT TALKS.
§ 2. Both the Hindoos and the Hebrews in their Holy
Books, make mention of a great destroying flood. One
chinery to going, which brought forth this world and its
inhabitants as if he had created it as set forth in Genesis.
^ If Ezra had consulted Manu as to his days of crea-
tion and lengthened them into Kalpas, of millions of
years, his poetry might not have been as entrancing, but
he would have been much nearer the truth.
^ Manu I, 5 and 6. Some scholars maintain that the
word "darkness" here is equivalent to Avidya (igno-
rance) .
238 A FISH SAVED MANU
morning when Manu ^ was washing himself a fish came
into his hands, and like Balaam's ass, and the serpent in
Eden, it possessed the power of speech. It said to Manu :
"A flood will come and carry all the people away. Rear
me and I will save thee from that." "How shall I rear
thee?" asked Manu. The fish replied: ''I am a small
fish ; the large ones devour the small ones. Keep me in a
tub and when I outgrow that put me in a pond; when
too large for the pond take me down to the sea. That
year the flood will come. Prepare a ship and I will save
thee from the flood." The fish soon became a large one
and was put into the sea. Meanwhile Manu built a
ship and the flood came and floated him and his craft.
The fish swam up to the boat, whereupon Manu ''threw
a rope over its horn." Then it swam to a lofty moun-
tain and told Manu to fasten to a tree there, until the
waters subsided, and that he could then descend gradu-
ally and be safe.^ All the other people were washed
away. And there is yet a legend of the tying of Manu's
ship on the summit of the Himalayas.
THE HINDU EVE.
Manu was now alone in the world and he desired off-
^ Satapatha, Brahmana, Vol. 12, S. B. E., p. 216. This
Manu is not the Creator, but the Father of mankind.
I am aware that it is claimed that Manu's fish story is
copied from the Noah affair. Now, if that be true, then
the Hebrews here pay back a small portion of their debt
to the Hindus.
^ This silly legend, first told, perhaps, as a camp story
4,000 or 5,000 years ago, may be the antecedent or
progenitor of Noah's deluge. His craft rested on a
mountain and so did Manu's.
THE FIRST HINDU WOMAN 239
spring. We are told that he offered sacrifices of clarified
butter, some milk and curds, and in a year a woman rose
from the sacrifices ''' and came to him. "Who art thou ?"
said he. "I am thy blessing, thy benediction. Whatever
thou shalt invoke through me all shall be granted to
thee." This woman became his bride and the mother
of the Seers of the Veda.
Noah's flood differs somewhat from that of Manu, for
instead of a fish the Lord himself warns Noah to build a
boat and gives him the dimensions to build it. The Lord
is sorry he made man, for "the earth was filled with vio-
lence ;" 8 and He proposes to drown all flesh. According
to the record, Noah was the only man upon the earth
who "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Ch. 6, v. 8.
It would seem to be a tremendous undertaking, even in
these days of rapid transit, to gather a variety of all the
beasts and birds upon the whole earth and house them in
a boat like the Ark. But the Lord was gracious unto
Noah, for he said to him that, "of fowls after their kind,
and of cattle of their kind, and of every creeping thing
of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come
unto thee to keep them alive." ^
Directly after this the Lord changed his mind and
^ A cautious writer might ask where his milk and but-
ter came from, for in such a flood the cattle must have
perished.
^ Gen. ch. v, 7 and 8. As I gave ample reasons in my
introductory chapter on Zoroaster and the Persian re-
ligion, and compared it with the Persian flood, I refer
the reader to section 5 of that chapter.
^ Genesis 6. Read the whole chapter.
240 NOAH'S ORDERS
gave Noah a different bill of lading. For he told him
to take of every clean beast by sevens, male and female,
and of beasts not clean ^^ by two, male and female. The
lowls of the air he should take by sevens.
THE ARK.
Let us first notice the Ark. It is a large, clumsy-look-
ing thing, about four hundred and fifty feet long, by
seventy-five feet wide, three stories, and one door for
each story, with only one window above, or on the top,
extending up one cubit.^^ It has rooms, but the number
is not known, neither can any one tell us what Gopher
wood is, the material of the Ark. Nor can we tell whether
it was nailed or spiked, or how it was fastened together.
We are told that Jubal-Cain was an artificer in brass
and iron, and perhaps the art had not been lost.^^ pos-
sibly there may have been a hardware store close by,
and if Noah had the cash or good credit, that point was
easily passed. Noah, at that time, was a veteran in years,
for if chapter 5, Genesis, be true, he was five hundred
years old. But in chapter 6 it is there declared that
man's days "shall be an hundred and twenty years," yet
Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters
was upon the earth (Gen. 7, v. 6). And he lived after
the flood ? three hundred and fifty years.^^
1^ All beasts that parted the hoof and were cloven-
footed and chewed the cud, except the camel, were clean.
Lev. xi.
1^ Gen. 6:16. There is no mention of glass for that
window, although in Egypt glass was in use 2,400 years
B. C.
^2 Gen. ch. 4, v. 22.
13 Gen. 9, V. 29. It would seem that the Lord had
changed his opinion about the length of man's days.
NO FIRE IN THE ARK 241
§ 3. How long this curious craft was in building, the
record is silent, and any opinion is mere conjecture. Some
say one hundred years and some even longer. If either
of those guesses be correct, Noah was certainly a man
of faith, courage and perseverance. Neither can any
human being tell the spot where this world-famous Ark
was constructed. It seems apparent, however, that if it
took Noah one hundred years to build it, the frame, un-
protected from the weather, would have become some-
what rotten and worm-eaten before the flood came. Nor
can we conjecture where he got grain and forage for
this immense carivansary that was to be housed in that
craft. We are also at a loss to know how Noah himself
fared during this long imprisonment. Did he eat cold
victuals all these weary months? There was no chimney
in the Ark. It was a dark stinking place filled with birds,
reptiles and beasts. He had no fire and no light. How
did he live?
Those who believe the record which we are investigat-
ing to be holy and God-given, will tell us that the Lord
provided all that. But the record does not say that it is
Holy, neither does it tell us that the Lord furnished
the food.
The carnivora required fresh meat every day, and the
waters prevailed one hundred and fifty days, and did
not commence to recede until the high hills and the lofty
mountains were covered with more than twenty feet of
water and all flesh had perished. Then it required one
hundred and fifty days more before the waters were
abated, and they ''decreased continually until the tenth
242 ONLY ONE WINDOW
month, when the tops of the mountains were seen."^*
The flesh-eaters (and there was an army of them), would
instinctively refuse salted food. How then were they
sustained for nearly a year? There were not enough of
the clean beasts in the ark to feed them, if we leave any
to procreate the species. Just how this difficulty was
bridged over I cannot tell, possibly the Lord closed the
mouths of the lions and other ravenous ones, as he closed
the lions' mouths when Daniel, later on, was flung into
a den of them.
THE PROCESSION INTO THE ARK.
Let us take our place by the gang-plank of the Ark
and witness this wonderful procession as it arrives.
There never before was one like it in all this broad earth,
and there never will be another such a gathering, in
variety, magnitude and importance, world without end.
The heavens are black, portentious, threatening. Not a
leaf is rustling in all the forests. There is a dead calm
and such an awful stillness that one can hear his own
heart beat. The very clouds seem so freighted that
they hang upon the tops of the trees as if waiting a
signal. Noah and his sons and their wives have just
gone into the Ark. Listen! Do you hear that muffled
sound? It is not the roar of the coming tempest. There
is a rustling of wings, there is a hissing and a trampling
as of myriads of feet. We hear now the lowing of cat-
tle, the bleating of sheep, and we are startled by the
terrific roar of a lion. This commingling of sounds, such
as no mortal ear ever heard before and will never hear
"Gen. 8:3 and 5.
GOD'S ELECT OF ANIMALS 243
again grows momentarily more distinct. It is the breath-
ing, trampling, crawling, flying, hopping and hissing of
God's elect of all animal life on earth. A most momentous
thing is about to happen. All life, not in this moving
column, is shortly to perish, and to perish because of the
wickedness of man. The head of the column is in sight.
No human voice or arm is guiding it; yet it moves with
the precision and steadiness of an army under a field-
marshal. Noah whispers to his sons : "Here they come !
they come! God has not forgotten me. My neighbors
scoffed and jeered me and their ridicule cut me to the
heart. But I remembered the promise of the Most High,
and obeyed Him. My sons, God will never desert you
if you put your trust in Him. Obey Him and fear not."
§ 4. The head of the column is now at the gang-plank.
Here come the ponderous hippopotamus and his mate,
laboring heavily, followed by some ugly-looking croco-
diles.^^ Behind them crawl two monstrous boa-constrict-
ors, and near them prance the horses, and they snort
furiously, for they had just seen the boa swallow an ox.
But the horses are safe, for the boa is drowsy and wants
to sleep. Noah himself looks somewhat nervous, for
he is but little familiar with the fauna of tropical
America. Here are the elephants, the lamas from Peru,
the camels, the zebras, the elks, the buffaloes, the cattle,
the gnu and the tall giraffe from Africa. All these pon-
1^ It has been claimed tliat the hippopotamus and the
crocodile and boa constrictor families, together with the
frogs, etc., did not go into the Ark. But amphibious
animals could not live 300 days in water alone. Noah
probably had a tank for them-
244 THEY CROWD IN
derous ones instinctively seek the lower floor of the Ark.
These and thousands of others crowd in. The lion
heads another division. The tiger, the wolf, the jaguar,
the hyena, the leopard, the cat, the dog, the rat, the
weasel, the opossum and skunk, the squirrel, the gopher
and mouse, and tens of thousands of other animals from
the frozen North and the tropical South all come crowd-
ing in.
THE APES.
But here is another division, headed by some curious
objects so like unto men that Noah is about to drive them
back. The leader bears a strong family resemblance to
Noah^s sons Shem, Ham and Japhet. Noah mentions
this to them and Shem replies: "Yes, father, that is
true, but his resemblance to you is even more striking
than to us." Noah speaks to the leader and it chatters
back to him. It has hands like a human and a face not
unlike many. The legs of the chimpanzee, its arms and
its hands were indeed so like Noah's that no wonder he
was puzzled.
No man, except Noah and his sons, must enter that
Ark; that is God's order; and here is the first case on
record where evolution was decided and defied. Noah
admitted the monkey, thus holding that it was not his
ancestor. It was fortunate for the ape that Noah so de-
cided, else he would have been turned back to perish
with all others in the destroying flood.
The closing act of this panorama has arrived, for the
flutter of wings announces the coming of the birds. The
gaudy peacock is directing the flight, with the eagle close
by. Here come the geese and the swans, the ducks and
flamingos, the swallows and martins, the lap-wings and
THE BIRDS 245
the quails, the turkeys and turtle-doves, the sparrows and
pigeons, the black-birds and wrens, with the crows
and birds of paradise. Here also are the orioles and robins,
and the bee-eaters and bitterns, followed by the great
auk, from Labrador, with its small wings tired and worn,
while the king-fisher skims along with ease. The owl
opens his eyes drowsily and Polly says she wants a
cracker. The raven and the dove were there, for Noah
himself speaks of them. The nightingale, in her long
flight across the Atlantic, is so worn and prosy that she
sings no more sweetly than the unmusical blue-jay.
The line of the feathered tribe so lengthened out that
it filled, completely, Noah's third story, except a small
space in one corner for a cow which had been left, upon
the urgency of Shem's wife, who wanted some milk for
the baby.
The great gathering is over and the three doors of the
Ark are closed. All animals and every creeping thing
on earth, according to Genesis, are represented in that
Ark. The windows of heaven are now opened "and all
the fountains of the great deep are broken up." ^^
THE ARK TOO SMALL.
Such a world-renowned and wonderful story as that of
the flood is naturally called in question. Here are a few
of the objections which I find against it. The Ark is
too small to hold a tenth part of the animals and their
food for eight or ten months. It is, or must have been,
a dark stenchy place. No windows, except a scuttle-hole
i** They have windows in heaven; but they had only
one window in the Ark. — Gen. VH, ii.
246 PITCHY DARKNESS IN THE ARK
in the roof. The animals were, therefore, enveloped in
pitchy darkness. The filth of their stalls would be death-
breeding. The poor animals could not be properly fed
and cared for by three men, Shem, Ham and Japhet.
A man of Noah's age (six hundred years) could do
but little. It would keep more than a thousand men busy,
day and night, with plenty of light and air, to look after
things.
The nights in that Ark were no darker than the days ;
for they had no lights; at least there is no mention of
them. As to food, each animal would require the grasses
and herbage of its locality. The flesh-eaters alone, in
three-hundred days, would devour all the animals in the
Ark. It will not do to say that God would feed them.
He did not agree to do so. The animals came unto Noah,
"for him to keep them alive." ^"^
Nor will it do to say that, Noah probably made more
than one door for each story, and one window for the
roof. The Almighty told him just how to build that Ark ;
and if he failed to follow the plans, then he disobeyed.
But, suppose the carnivora did not destroy all the cows,
and goats, and sheep, while in the Ark. They are all
turned loose, when the folks go ashore. What happens?
The lions, hyenas, wolves, etc., feed upon the cattle and
sheep and goats; and thus all this coming to Noah to
save their lives, is frustrated. Moreover, the long months
of water has killed all the grass and herbage; and the
cattle, on leaving the Ark, found the earth a great, barren,
leafless desert. There is not a seed for the birds, nor a
'^'^ Genesis VIj 20.
BABYLON DELUGE STORY 247
bit of pasture for the flocks. But some pious soul, with
more faith than reason, will say, '*God could take care of
all that." I can as well reply, that God could have de-
stroyed all the world, except Noah and his family, and
the elect animals, without all this trouble with the Ark.
noah's deluge is a copy.
§ 5. But is not this whole thing a copy, somewhat
extended and changed, from that old untrustworthy Baby-
lonian mythical deluge story? Genesis is a Jewish nar-
rative, and the Jews were notorious copyists and imita-
tors ; but they were also rhetoricians, and writers of high
degree.
Athenian eloquence, in the space of three hundred
years, was carried to such heights, that it has never yet
been surpassed. Thus, also, Jewish writers from the
time of Ezra, to the close of the four Gospels, a period
of about six hundred and fifty years, completed a volume
that, perhaps, for felicity of expression, and lofty
imagery, will never be excelled. But often the Pegassus
of the poet mounted beyond the cold facts.
The Babylonian deluge story was current in Babylon
centuries before Ezra was carried there as a prisoner of
war. That story had been copied by the Babylonians
from the Accadians, so that we do not get it even second
hand. The ancient world was, in fact, full of deluge
stories. The Persians, however, changed the destroying
deluge into the cold and killing frosts of winter. With
the Persians, it was not because the "earth was filled
with violence," that mankind was to be destroyed; but
248 THE PERSIAN VARA
because it was filled to "overflowing" with men and
animals.^ ^
The Persian romancer, instead of an Ark, is directed
by Ahura Mazda (God) to build a great underground
vara, an abode two miles square, with streets, and foun-
tains of water ; and is told that there will be a light, self-
shining, within, to make that abode as light as an eternal
day.i^ The frosts came, as did the flood, and killed all
the people and animals not in the vara.
If the Genesis flood-story be true, it is a bad thing for
those who trace their genealogy to Noah ; for his conduct,
later on, stamps him as a Bacchanalian. If the whole
earth is, in truth, descended from the Ark people; then
drunkenness is a strain and a stain in our blood. But
why that old man, slobbering in his cups, had the power
to curse Ham, and have that curse follow him and his
posterity all these years, I confess myself unable to un-
derstand. Is it not more charitable to think it a mistake
of the printer ?
THE RAINBOW.
But is not the whole flood-story rendered extremely
equivocal and uncertain by what is said about the rain-
bow?
Did the sun never shine while rain-drops were falling,
before the flood-time? If it did, then, just so surely a
rainbow was formed. Why then the statement, "I do
^® One thousand years or less; probably five hundred
years will again fill the world to overflowing. What
then ? Is it a flood or a vara ?
1^ See my introductory chapter on Zoroaster and his
teachings, where this is fully set forth.
RAINBOW OLDER THAN THE FLOOD 249
set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a
covenant" that all flesh shall not again be destroyed by a
flood (Genesis IX, 9 to 17). The bow had been ''sef
long before the flood ; and Noah must have often admired
its beauty. When the first rain-drops fell through the
first sunshine, then the bow was "set." It was, and is,
the result of an established law, and that law will con-
tinue unchanged, just so long as raindrops fall through
the atmosphere while the sun is shining.
Is it too much to assert, that if Manu's fish story had
been written into Genesis, instead of that of Noah and
his Ark, many devout and unquestioning souls would
gulp it down as solid fact.
And there is not a bit of doubt that, if the Noah legend
had been transcribed into the Sacred code of Manu, the
foolish Hindoos would insist that it was an Sruti (revela-
tion) from their God, Brahma.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD. THE PUNISHMENT OF
THE WICKED.
§ I. The Brahman and the Jewish Bibles both set
forth that this world will be ultimately destroyed. And
that a matter of such supreme importance may not be
overlooked and forgotten, that statement is repeated
again and again. Just where those writers obtained their
information they do not state; but if they guessed at it,
they are confirmed, some say, by modern science.
The Hindu Bible states that at the end of great periods
of time, called Kalpas, the Lord will dissolve this mate-
rial world. He does not burn it up ; He simply dissolves
it; or, as it were. He pulverizes it. Peter, after declar-
ing that the world shall be burned up, falls back upon this
old Hindu word and says, "all things shall be dissolved."
(H Peter, ch. 3.)
All souls meanwhile, according to the Hindu Bible,
He in deep sleep until, at the Lord's convenience. He pre-
pares another world.
If the soul be loaded with demerit, it is not flung into
a furnace of fire to broil and burn for countless Kalpas,
but is given another body and has another chance. It
may see its error ; it may reform, and be born into higher
and higher grades, until perfect knowledge is reached,
250
THE HOPE OF THE BRAHMAN 251
and final release is found in Brahma (God). The pure
in heart find peace at once.
The Brahmans believe that this process of creation,
and destruction of the world, will go on in the future,
as it has in the past; through endless Kalpas. That is,
the body of man being dust, will be resolved back to dust.
That the soul is an emanation from Brahma ; ^ that it was
pure before it went forth from him ; and that it must be
pure before it can return to him.
The hope and the struggle of the pious Hindu was to
escape metempsychosis and become absorbed in Brahma.
For unrepentant sinners, twenty-one hells were provided,
by Yama, the Lord of Justice, where they were tossed
about, in terrors and torments, "like to that of being
bound and mangled." ^ But this did not happen until
"another strong body" was given the evil doer, when,
having suffered for his faults, the soul, purged of its
stains, approached the Great One and Kshetragna (the
Knower of the Field). These two, as judges, examine
each soul that appears before them, and send it on a pil-
grimage of transmigration, according to its merit or
demerit.
Brahma, it is said, completely pervades all existences,
with three controlling qualities: goodness, activity and
1 Is not this nearly tantamount to saying that wicked
souls having forgotten that they emanated or came from
God ; and that they are a part of the integer or whole, will
have to transmigrate from body to body until they re-
cover their memory.
2 Manu, ch. 4, § 87; Manu XII, § 75; Manu XII, §16
to 33. Lord of Justice, Manu, ch. 7, § 7.
252 75 THERE PREDESTINATION?
darkness. That when a man feels a deep calm in his soul,
he may know that the quality of goodness predominates.
But if greed of gain and sensual objects lure him, he is
marked with activity, and finds it difficult to tread the
narrow path. Darkness has the form of ignorance ; leads
an evil life, and is ever covetous, unholy, and cruel.
Now if it be true that whatever the Lord first appointed
to each soul, whether gentleness or ferocity, virtue or
sin, truth or falsehood, and those qualities cling to it,
spontaneously, then is it not also true that the Lord pre-
destined some souls to tribulation and woe ? ^ Wicked,
marble-hearted old John Calvin would smack his lips
with pleasure if he could know of this hateful Hindu
creed. Yet, if we look about us, and confine our vision to
man's life on earth (for that is all we know of it), we
shall find representatives of Goodness, Activity and Dark-
ness on every hand ; each clinging tenaciously to its birth-
mark. Those endowed with supreme goodness have no
struggle to become pure in heart; and with ease they
reach ''the state of the Gods."
Moreover, each of the three-fold classes of transmi-
gration were further divided into three lesser grades.
The doom of the worst soul in darkness was that it should
inhabit the body of a fish, a rat, or snake, or insect. In
the next grade above this, in darkness, the soul was sent
into a barbarian, a lion or tiger; and the very highest
grade that it could obtain, in that division, was as a hypo-
crite, a panderer, a snake deity, a liar, or a demon. The
lowest of the order of Activity were drunkards, gamblers.
3 Chapter 32, Deut.
THE AVARICIOUS 253
knaves, despicable wretches; and just above them in the
same order were the disputations and those meddlesome
tattlers, including unworthy priests and forked-tongued
women.
Those panting for gain, avaricious souls, greedy,
grasping, watching their treasures; those hell-born gob-
lins; even those made up the highest ranks of Activity.
Goodness also had its degree, reaching up to the
very throne. At the lowest round stood the hermits,
ascetics, Brahmanas, and a class of deities who traveled
in mid-air, called Vaimanikas. Next above these were
the sages, the vedic deities, and the Manes.^ Beyond
these and above these, on the very pinnacle of goodness,
without a stain, reposed Brahma, the Great One, the cre-
ator of the universe, beyond whom, nothing.
§ 2. It is certain that in this alleged final destruction
of the world, the Hebrews were imitators and copyists.
For that idea, when the book of Deuteronomy was found,
had been prevalent in India from four hundred to six
hundred years. Long enough surely for an idea, even
though slow-footed, to travel from Punjab to Jerusalem.
When then was this book of Deuteronomy found? For
in that book (chapter 33) these remarkable words are
written : "A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn
into the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her
increase, and set on fire the foundations of the moun-
tains." This is the first distinct enunciation found in the
Bible that the earth shall be destroyed. And the word
^ These Manes were primeval deities, free from anger,
loving purity, chaste, averse to strife, and endowed with
great virtues. Manu 3:192.
254 A REMARKABLE FIND
^'hell" is here first used in the Hebrew Bible. That
awful catastrophy to the whole world is to take place,
and all mankind are to perish because some wicked He-
brews had provoked the Almighty to anger by sacrificing
unto devils and not to Him; and by their vanities and
abominations.^ This threat to consume the earth crept
into the record in the following mysterious way : About
six hundred and twenty-four years B. C, Hilkiah, the
High Priest in Jerusalem, send word to Josiah, the King,
that he had ''found the book of the law (Deuteronomy)
in the house of the Lord." It was surely the most re-
markable ''find" in all history.^
Moses had been in his grave about eight hundred and
twenty-seven years; yet, during all that period, eventful
to the Jews, there was no whisper that such a book as
Deuteronomy was in existence. The reigns of David and
Solomon preceded this "find" by more than three hun-
dred years. Where was this wonderful book during all
those centuries? We have only the bare, unsupported
word of Hilkiah, the High Priest, about this matter ; and
all the circumstances are against him. A book hidden
away eight hundred and twenty-seven years! the ink
would fade, and the leaves would rot. In the dryest cli-
5 Chapter 32, Deut.
^ Shakespeare agrees with the Hindus and thinks the
earth will be dissolved.
"The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve,
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded.
Leave not a wreck behind."
AFTER 800 YEARS 255
mates and with the best of care four hundred or five hun-
dred years is the Hmit of the life of a book. This book
was hidden ; for he found it. If hidden it must have been
put in some secret place, wrapped up; secreted; yet no
other High Priest mentions it for eight hundred and
twenty-seven years. There had been journeyings, and
wanderings, and wars, and rebellions, and battles, and
retreats, in those centuries. Deuteronomy during all this
time was not found by any one. The Ark of the Cove-
nant had been often moved ; likewise the Mercy Seat, and
tabernacles; yet, in all these frequent changes, Deuter-
onomy lay undiscovered. Moses had died, and the Lord
had buried him in Moab ; yet neither the Lord, nor Moses,
said a word about this hidden record. Furthermore,
after it is found, a strange thing happens. The King
(Josiah) directs Hilkiah and others to enquire of the
Lord about this newly- found wonder; and they visit
Huldah, a prophetess and fortune-teller, living in Jeru-
salem, and she reports favorably, of course, and Deu-
teronomy becomes a ''thus saith the Lord."^ Another
proof that Moses did not write this chapter in Deuter-
onomy, where the earth is threatened with destruction, is
that it is poetry (blank verse), and Moses was not a poet.
He was a stern law-giver. Yet, some of these verses have
the rhythm of a Longfellow or an Emerson.
In that distant period, it is true that ideas traveled very
slowly. But if Ezra was the last editor of the Old Testa-
^ From a careful investigation of this matter, I think
Hilkiah wrote the book, and lied about finding it. Ezra,
probably, after the captivity, modified it somewhat. The
copyright, however, belongs to Hilkiah.
256 PETER COPIES THE HINDU
ment, there was plenty of time for this notion about the
destruction of the earth to be carried from Persia, and
from India, to Babylon, to Jerusalem, and even west of
the Adriatic. It was an idea of such magnitude, and
terrible importance, that it was calculated to excite won-
der and discussion among all classes. This much, we
are certain, may be safely affirmed ; that centuries before
Hilkiah found Deuteronomy in the House of the Lord,
the Hindoos had been teaching that the earth would be
destroyed, and again reconstructed, and that this process
would revolve continuously, like a wheel in perpetual
motion.
§ 3. We hear nothing further in the Jewish Bible
(and the New Testament was written by Jews) about
the destruction of the world, until nearly seven hundred
years after Hilkiah, when Peter declares that ''the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
melt w^th a fervent heat, and the earth shall be burned
up."
Peter also, in imitation of the Hindoos, declares that
there shall be a day of judgment, and perdition, for the
ungodly.^ Paul chimes in with this, and says that Jesus
will come in flaming fire, and ''take vengeance on them
that obey Him not ; and will punish them with everlasting
destruction."^ Paul, copying from the Persian, or the
Hindu Bible, or both, is specific about the happenings at
^ II Peter, ch. 3, v. 7 to 14. But Peter is a little cloudy
about where the heavens and earth will pass to, when
they pass away. Peter evidently did not know that matter
is eternal, and cannot be annihilated.
^11 Thessalonians, ch. i. Paul does an injustice to
HINDU SPECULATION 257
the final day. Manu says, each soul is examined as to its
merit and guilt, and "obtains bliss or misery." That if
''virtue and vice are found in a small degree, it obtains
bliss in heaven, clothed with those very elements. But if
it chiefly cleaves to vice, and in a small degree to virtue,
it suffers the torments inflicted by Yama." ^^
Paul, with the imagination of the poet, is inclined to
exaggeration. He therefore proclaims that the Lord him-
self shall descend from heaven, with a shout and with the
trump of God. That the "righteous shall be caught up in
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and be ever with
him." 11
Paul being a scholar, had no doubt learned of this
Pagan doctrine; but, being also a Jew, his nature is
naturally more fierce, and unrelenting, than the milder
Hindu ; and he threatens the wicked with vengeance, and
everlasting destruction. "The Hindu punished the wicked
with great severity, but his punishment was not everlast-
ing. For when his term had expired, his soul was sent
into some animal, and might, as we have seen, work its
way upward towards supreme bliss." Even a mortal sin
of the Hindu did not consign him to eternal flames.^^
Both of these punishments seem fearful to contemplate ;
Jesus, about taking vengeance on the wicked; for Jesus
was not a vengeful man. The genuineness of this epistle
is questioned, but it is published as Gospel; therefore I
quote it.
10 Manu Xn, i8 to 23 : But Yama's torments were not
eternal.
11 I Thess. IV, v. 16 and 17, and H Thess., ch. i, v. 8
and 9.
12 Manu xn, 54.
258 BEYOND BELIEF
but of the two, the Hindu is much less terrible than the
Jewish, the penalties in both being much too severe for
the offense. In short, they are so fiendish, that they are
beyond belief, for they picture God as a demon, gloating
over misery; and not as a "Lord very pitiful, and of
tender mercy." (James V.)
Neither of these Bibles take into consideration the orig-
inal difference in the construction of the human brain —
the seat of the mind. But every one, no matter what his
original gifts or curses may have been, must measure up
to the same high standard, or suffer beyond expression.
Now, it is plain that some children are born with high
moral faculties, and with none of that grasping greedi-
ness which wickedly covets the wealth of others. With
destructiveness small, with benevolence large, such a
child, grown to maturity, is filled with good works, and
is as certain not to sink into a thief or robber, or mur-
derer, as a June sunbeam is certain to bring forth the
roses. Another child is born, perhaps the same hour,
with his moral faculties sadly depressed ; with destructive-
ness large ; with covetousness abnormally developed. He
is a horn thief and robber; but he inherited those dan-
gerous tendencies. They were bom in him, and forever
must be as a weight about his neck, pulling him down to
dark and devious ways. They act as a perpetual load-
stone drawing him continually towards the cess-pools of
vice and crime. There was, and is, a gulf as deep and
wide and impassable between these two persons, as be-
tween Dives and Lazarus. Yet, at the last assize-judg-
ment day, if there be such a day, this child of sin must
appear in spotless robes, or he is doomed, according to
GOD IS NOT A DEMON 259
Paul, to endless woe and suffering. Even the milder and
more humane Hindu punishes such an one with great
severity. Is there even-handed justice in this? Must this
inherited wickedness "suffer" in that fire which shall
never be quenched; where the worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched,!^ simply because certain parts of his
brain were, without his making, small, where they ought
to have been large, and excessive where they ought to
have been small ?
Is it not true that "just as the twig is bent, the tree in-
clines" ? The one who bent the twig is to blame for the
crooked tree. The tree is not to blame. The one who
caused the crooked brains to thus grow; is he not to
blame for the crooked acts which follow? It will not
do to say that God will adjust all these matters on that
final day. The record, if true, does not so state. Let us
keep to the record or throw it aside. If God inspired
Mark to write those awful words, then God puts Himself
on a level with the demons ; for demons can do no worse
than to roast a man in unquenchable, everlasting flames.
Reader, the writers of the Hindu and the Hebrew
Bibles, lived in times of ignorance, superstition and
idolatry. Both Bibles make their Gods cruel, barbarous
and ungodly. Let us believe the good things that are said
about the Creator, but let us not believe with Mark and
Manu, that God is a demon.
13 Mark IX, 45 and 46.
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