ALLUSIONS IN SACRED BOOKS OP THE EAST. 



195 



work ended with the statement that the dynasty had then 

 lasted for 284 years. 



In this connection there is a Parsi tradition which is of great 

 significance; Alexander the Great is accused of having 

 destroyed many of the Avestan books, and it is recorded of a 

 certain Askanian king, Valkash, that he caused the scattered 

 fragments of the remnant tradition to be collected together. 

 This Valkash is identified with Vologeses I., king of Parthia, a 

 contemporary of Nero, and though a Greek by birth, a convert 

 to Zoroastrianism. Since the Bundahiswas collated at this very 

 time, and bears traces of the system of Hipparchus in its 

 astronomical framework, 1 think the probability is great that it 

 was compiled by this very king Vologeses. 



At this time, in the middle of the first century of our era, 

 there was great interchange of religious thought. Many men 

 were changing their faiths in their earnest searching after God. 

 This Vologeses was king of Parthia, and his father, Artabanus, 

 was under deep obligations to Izates, the king of Adiabene, the 

 very centre and home of the Magi. Perhaps it was through 

 this connection that Vologeses and his brother Tiridates adopted 

 the Magian faith. Izates was the son of Monobasus, king of 

 Adiabene, and of Helena, his queen and sister; that is to say, 

 Monobasus and Helena had performed one of the most sacred 

 rites of the Magi, a next-of-kin marriage. Izates was therefore 

 divinely king, through his father, through his mother, and 

 through their fulfilment of this rite. Nevertheless, after the 

 death of Monobasus both Queen Helena and Izates, her son, 

 embraced Judaism through the teaching of certain Jews, Ananias 

 and Eleazer ; and his Magian nobles, objecting to the rule of a 

 king of the Jewish faith, called in Vologeses to depose him. 

 Josephus slurs over the subsequent events, so that they are 

 scarcely intelligible, for though he makes out that Izates was 

 victorious in the struggle, yet he and his mother and his many 

 children retired to Jerusalem, and Monobasus, his brother, 

 reio'ned in his stead, first as recent, and then after the death of 

 Izates (about a.d. 50) as king. The tomb of Queen Helena is at 

 Jerusalem to this day, and indeed it is but a few years since 

 M. De Saulcy opened her sarcophagus and found her very form, 

 and on the sarcophagus was an Aramaic text beginning with 

 the legend " Elen Malkatha," or ''Helena the Queen." The 

 children of Izates were in Jerusalem during the siege by Titus, 

 and w T ere carried as hostages to Eome. 



When kings change their faith, there are many converts also 

 among their subjects. Here, then, we have Greeks becoming 



o 2 



