2SC ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



**■ Heaven, of the waters, of the earth, of plants — before the creation 

 *• of four-footed kine, before the birth of the first man, before I had 

 " formed the mass of the sun, after I had created my archangels." 

 Zoroaster adds a cholium, that " the will of the Lord'^ teaches Him to 

 be supreme: "the rule of righteousness" shews Him to be the moral 

 teacher of all. " Happiness in the hereafter " proclaims the benefits 

 that good thoughts bring. The word " Lord " shews Him the end 

 of Creation, possibly inferring that all creatures return to Him. " He 

 makes Kings reign " confers on Zarathushtra the kingdom of the con- 

 science. It would be useless to dilate on the details, all of them given 

 in the Zend Avesta, best translated by James Darmstetter. Tihe first 

 animal created by Ahura was the Bull, whose body was slain by Ahri- 

 man the evil spirit, i.e., Death followed on the heels of life. One 

 of the good creatures of God was Fire. The Gâtha runs thus (chanted 

 in unison) : — 



To Fire the sun of the Lord most wise — holy and purifying, (i) 



To Fire the useful. (2) 



To Fire our most excellent friend. (^) 



To Fire the universal. (^) 



To Fire most swift. (^) 



To Fire the benevolent. (*) 



To Fire the glorious. (^) 



Then we have Fire which both eats and drinks (animal life), which 

 drinks, but eats not (vegetable life), which neither eats nor drinks 

 (lightning), and Fire, .the special impulse, (of the priest, warrior, hus- 

 bandman, etc.). 



It would seem as if in the conflict of races and religious views which 

 was settled for a short time by the union of the nations of the whole of 

 the great Euphrates and Tigris valleys, upper and lower, under the Per- 

 sian kings, the philosophy of the old Sun-worshippers, who honoured 

 Fire as the representative of that supreme natural force, prevailed 

 over the grosser idolatrous practices of the people of the old Assyrian 

 empire. Pythagoras, on his way to India, if he did not meet with 

 ZoToaster himself, certainly had the opportunity of studying his philo- 

 sophy. It was simple, which accounts for its long duration. The 

 religion afterwards associated with it in the form of the worship of 

 Mithra, permeated the Roman Empiire and even gave to it for a ruler 

 Heliogabalus, one of its priests. It was reformed and persisted in the 



(These refer respectively C) to the Fire of Sacrifice, C) to household 

 Fire, (') to bodily heat, C) to warmth in the air, (') to lightning, C) to the 

 fire burning before Ahura Mazda, O to the Majesty residing in Kings.) 



