The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6). Duncker Max

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alphabet of Pehlevi beside the Western alphabet. When Ardeshir destroyed the empire of the Parthians in the year 226 A.D. these two alphabets were in existence. The Eastern alphabet finally triumphed over the Western. It became the royal mode of writing, and as such was used on the coins. The letters in the manuscripts of the Pehlevi translation of the Avesta in the possession of the Parsees agree throughout with the characters on the legends of the coins of the Sassanids about the year 600 A.D.111 The characters also, in which the text of the Avesta is written in the manuscripts of the Parsees, belong to the later East-Pehlevi alphabet, which, owing to the greater wealth of the old Bactrian alphabet in sounds, especially in vowels, possesses a greater number of letters.112 The coincidence of the letters in the manuscripts of the Parsees with those on the coins of the later Sassanids, proves beyond contradiction that although the oldest existing manuscripts belong to the fourteenth century of our era,113 they are nevertheless true copies of the characters in which the Avesta was written in the last century of the empire of the Sassanids.

      All that the Parsees of India now possess are some not very extensive remains of the revision of the sacred scriptures made in the reign of Shapur II. The existing part of the laws corresponds in the title, the divisions and their arrangements, with the twentieth book of the text (p. 52). It contains the rubrics for purification, for repelling and removing the evil spirits. The title is the Vendîdad, or, in the older form, the Vidaevodata, i. e. "given against the Daevas," or evil spirits. Obviously this book was regarded as the most important and valuable part of the law, and to this circumstance it owes its preservation. Besides this we have invocations and prayers, chiefly belonging to the liturgy. They form a considerable collection, known by the title of Yaçna, i. e. worship. The remainder of the 348 chapters was lost in the invasion of the Arabs into Iran, owing to their fanatical zeal for conversion.114

      Though we were able to establish the fact that these fragments belonged in their language, their contents, and their written character to Eastern Iran, and the evidence of Western writers proved to us that at the time when Alexander of Macedon overthrew the kingdom of the Achæmenids, there were sacred scriptures of considerable extent in Iran – this does not enable us to decide the date of the origin of these scriptures. We have to inquire whether these writings were known in the West of Iran also, before the date of the Sassanids; whether the new collection and revision about the year 350 of our era was satisfied with faithfully representing the old condition of the scriptures, so far as it could be discovered, or whether it altered their contents; whether the influence exercised by Hellenic and Aramaic elements in the time of the Seleucids and Parthians – so obvious in the one case and so searching in the other – affected the contents of the Avesta.115 This question cannot be set aside, because even under the Sassanids, in spite of their zeal for the Avesta and for Iran, these elements were not unknown. We are aware that Greek and Jewish schools flourished in Syria and Mesopotamia at the date of the Sassanids, that Chosru Nushirvan (531-578 A.D.) gave his protection to Damascius and the Platonists in his kingdom, and caused Greek works to be translated. However much other virtues, required in the Avesta, were extolled in this ruler, such as the foundation of fire-temples, and appointment of sacristans for them, the promotion of agriculture (no temple was to be without cultivated lands) and of marriages – nevertheless sects sprung up within the true religion. Even in official documents of the fifth century we find a certain deviation from the doctrine of the Avesta; under king Kavadh (488-453 A.D.), Mazdak, who proclaimed the community of goods and women, found adherents, and the Arabs speak of sects in Iran which opposed the teaching of the Magians.116 They mention the Zarvanites, the Gayomarthians, and others, of whom the Zarvanites sought to derive the good and evil deity from some higher abstraction,117 while the Gayomarthians represented the evil deity as proceeding from the thought of the good deity. Had conceptions of this kind, and other later views which we find in their doctrines, influence on the restoration of the canon? The fact that the sacred writings were composed in a language no longer current, when the canon was restored, is not a complete safeguard against changes and interpolations, for the priests at that time may have understood the language, and therefore may possibly have been able to compose in it.

       CHAPTER IV.

       ZARATHRUSTRA AND THE DATE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE AVESTA. 118

      The examination of the difficult questions, whether, from what period, and to what extent, the Avesta was known in Western Iran before the time of Alexander, when the book came into existence, whether its contents have come down uninjured from an ancient period, or whether it underwent alterations in the time of the Parthians and the Sassanids, will be best opened by collecting and testing the accounts which have been preserved in the West about Zarathrustra and his work. Herodotus does not mention him, but Xanthus the Lydian is said to have spoken of him, before the date of Herodotus. Plato describes Zoroaster as the founder of the doctrine of the Magians, and calls him a son of Oromazes.119 With Hermodorus, a pupil of Plato, Zoroaster is a Persian, the first Magian.120 Deinon concludes from the name that he was a worshipper of the stars. Hermippus of Smyrna speaks of him as a Bactrian, and is said to have described him as a pupil of Azonakes (or Agonakes).121 Diodorus informs us that Zoroaster gave out among the Arians that the good spirit had revealed to him the laws which he published.122 Trogus Pompeius relates that Ninus finally carried on war with Zoroaster the king of the Bactrians, who discovered the art of the Magians, and inquired accurately into the primal forces of the world, and the movements of the stars; he was slain by Ninus.123 Pliny observes that Zoroaster, the founder of the doctrine of the Magians, smiled on the day of his birth, and beat his head vigorously as a symbol of his wisdom; for thirty years he lived in the desert on cheese. Plutarch's account is that Zoroaster took no other food or drink all his life but milk, and like Lycurgus and Numa, he associated with the Divine Being.124 Dio Chrysostom tells us that Zoroaster from his love for wisdom and justice lived remote from men in solitude on a mountain, which had been kindled by fire from above, and burned continuously, and when the king approached the mountain with his leading men to offer prayer to the god, Zoroaster came unharmed out of the fire, and bade them offer sacrifice for the god had visited the place. After this Zoroaster did not associate with all men, but only with those who were most adapted to receive the truth and converse with the god, whom the Persians called Magians, i. e. those who have skill to serve the Divine Being.125 Kephalion asserted that Zoroaster the Magian, the king of the Bactrians, fought with Semiramis and was vanquished by her.126 Theon of Alexandria also speaks of the conflict between Semiramis and the Bactrian Zoroaster. Arnobius is aware of the battle of Ninus with Zoroaster and the Bactrians,127 and in Eusebius Zoroaster, the Magian, the king of the Bactrians, fights against Ninus.128 According to the treatise of Eubulus of Athens on Mithras, Porphyrius related that Zoroaster had consecrated a natural cave, in which were flowers and springs, in the neighbouring mountains of Persia, in honour of Mithra, the creator and father of all, and since that time the favour of the god had been sought in a cave.129 Ammianus Marcellinus calls Zoroaster a Bactrian, and tells us that Hystaspes, the father of Darius, spread abroad the doctrine of the Magians.130 Agathias remarks that the Persians of his time asserted that Zoroaster, or Zaradus, as they called him, who gave them their religious doctrine and law, the son of Oromasdes, lived at the time of Hystaspes; but they made the assertion in such a manner that no man knew whether this Hystaspes was the father of Darius or some other of the name. But whatever the date

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