Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 689 



The transition from this to a pure monotheism, in which 

 all contact with or relation to minor gods or goddesses was 

 excluded, was taken by at least three nationalities 3500 to 

 2500 years ago. These were the Iranians, the Egyptians, 

 and the Israelites. But, while the second of these never seems 

 to have developed a stable and widely accepted monotheistic 

 belief, the other two established such on a firm basis. Though 

 our knowledge is still far from exact or minute, the unified 

 monotheistic religions of both nations seem largely due to 

 two personalities, Zarathushtra and Moses. 



It may forever be impossible to tell which of the two ap- 

 peared first in history, but, while the tendency is to place the 

 period of Zarathushtra's appearance as about 1000 B. C, the 

 fact that the oldest of his principles, if not all, seem to have 

 been written in an Iranian language now wholly lost to us, 

 and even to Persians of two millennia ago, strongly suggest 

 that he may have flourished 1500 to 2000 years B. C. Moses 

 probably lived between 1300 and 1200 years B. C, but it is 

 now generally conceded that much of the moral as well as 

 religious teachings of which he is the accredited founder did 

 not crystallize till five to six centuries later. The acknowl- 

 edged polytheistic tendencies of the Israelites also, up to the 

 period of the Babylonian and Persian captivities, strongly 

 suggests that much of their monotheistic belief may have 

 been derived from an Iranian source. For, while it has often 

 been asserted in the past that little intercourse occurred be- 

 tween Medo-Persia on the east and Palestine, Greece, or Egypt 

 on the w^est, it is gradually being recognized and accei)ted 

 that movements of "holy men" between 1500 and 500 B. C. 

 may have been nearly as extensive as were those under Paul 

 and his successors from 30 to 300 A. D. The dispersion and 

 persecution of Zarathushtra's follow^ers doubtless aided this 

 not a little. 



The monotheistic religions of purified Mazdaism and Ju- 

 daism, that Zarathushtra and Moses respectively founded, 

 incorporated much of all that was best from the older religions 

 and especially from that of Heliotheism. So in both a great 



