88 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



fallen into the same errors. 1 The Par- 

 sees, likewise, in order to elude the pursuit 

 of Mussulman fanaticism, have more or 

 less Shemiticised their entire mythology. 

 The treatise of Hyde 2 on the religion of 

 the ancient Persians, so imperfect as a pic- 

 ture of the true Zoroastrian institutions, 

 unknown at the time when Hyde wrote in 

 1700, hut so curious as a picture of old 

 Persian traditions disfigured by Islamism, 

 presents at every step, names of Hebrew 

 patriarchs, substituted for those of the 

 heroes of Persia. Finally, the Arda'i Viraf 

 Nameli, of the period of the Sassanides, 

 presents the extraordinary phenomenon of 

 a Jewish book, "The Ascension of Isaiali," 

 changed bodily into full-blown Mazdeism, 

 and applied to a pretended sage, contem- 

 porary with Ardishir Babikan, Ardai Yiraf. 

 The habit of fraud and untruth which in- 

 fested the East towards the close of the 



1 Chwolson, Die Ssabier, I. p. 648 ff. 



2 Hist. Religionis Vett. Persarum, eorumque Magorum, etc. 

 Lond. 1760. 



