262 
priests,* and exhorting his adherents to revere the Angra, 
known in the Vedic Hymns as the Angiras, an ancient race 
or family peculiarly connected with religions rites even before 
the separation of Indian and Iranian ; and so also we meet 
with the sacred name Ahura, as applied to the supreme Aryan 
divinity, even before the sepai*ation of the Eastern and Western 
branches of the mighty family. Thus the Ahuryan religion, 
the faith of the Angra- Angiras, was already ancient in Zara- 
thustra's day. Be it also observed that Monotheism does not 
consist, as one might almost suppose from the manner in 
which it is frequently treated, in the negation of the belief in 
the existence of all sentient beings except God and ourselves. 
For, just as we, who are monotheists, accept the existence of 
angelic intelligences, good and evil, and of the souls of the 
dead, holy and unholy ; so Zarathustra may have regarded the 
Devas as actual objective existences, as evil angels or demons, 
without thereby in any degree infringing on his position a3 
the champion of monotheism. I am not inquiring what his 
views on the subject were, but merely wish to show that in 
any case they do not affect the general question, inasmuch as 
he certainly did not regard the Devas as true gods. 
11. History of the name Asara : meaning of “ Aliuramazda.” 
It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern scientific re- 
search to have revealed, by means of historical and philological 
investigation, the primitive unity of the Aryan family, a grand 
fact, which, like all other facts, is in perfect harmony with 
Biblical statement. We now know that there was a time 'when 
the ancestors of Kelt, Teuton, Slav, Latin, Greek, Iranian, and 
Indian, dwelt together as a single nation. Then came a first 
and great separation, when Iranian and Indian were left 
together, whilst the others, impelled by the old and mys- 
terious law of “Westward Ho,” pushed forward into Erebf 
* Vide inf. secs. 30-32. 
t Ereb signifies “ the West,” and, similarly, the Arabs are the people in 
the west of Asia. “ Erebos ” is originally the western gloom after sunset, 
from the Assyrian eribu, “ to descend,” as the sun. In accordance with this 
circumstance, the Homeric Erebos lies in the west. The cave of Skylle looks 
“ towards the west, ( i.c .) to Erebos” (Od. xii. 81) ; Odysseus turns towards 
Erebos to sacrifice (Ibid. x. 528), and thence the ghosts assemble (Ibid. xi. 
37). Aides, as King of the Underworld, is called “ Hcsperos Theos” 
(Sophokles, Oed. Tyr. 177); and a “westward position” was generally 
adopted by the Greeks when invoking infernal divinities (cf. Mitford, 
History of Greece, xxii. 2). The main entrance to Greek temples of gods 
