54 
SOOFFEES. 
writers are of opinion, that as these philosophizing theologians 
existed in Persia before the Arabian conquest introduced its 
language amongst them, the appellation in question might as 
reasonably be deduced from the Greek masters of the country, 
and their 2o<poi (Sophoi) wise men, be the root of the Eastern 
sage; in short, whatever be the name they bear, whether in old or 
in modern philosophy, the same common vanity of human reason 
that has misled enthusiastic and self-confident minds from the 
beginning of man’s history until now, may be recognised in the 
self-deifying theories of these wild deists. Inflamed by the 
poetic fancies of an ardent imagination acting upon high notions 
of their own mental capacities, the idea of any order of spirit 
being superior in its original nature to theirs, they deemed im¬ 
possible ; nothing seeming to them too exalted for their con¬ 
ceptions, too sublimely pure for their participation ; in fine, 
deriving their existence from God himself, not by creation, but 
by emanation; they set forth with so peculiar and mystical a 
pretension to holiness, that the ignorant vulgar, confounded 
with the excess of light to which they pretended, yielded im¬ 
plicit credit and consequent homage to such superior sanctity. 
Indeed, the great reputation acquired by Sooffee (or 3efi)-u-deen, 
one of the most eminent of these philosophic devotees, smoothed 
the road for his descendants to mount the throne of Persia. 
Ismail the First, of the posterity of this celebrated ascetic, be¬ 
came king A. D. 1500; and in honour of his holy ancestor, the 
dynasty he founded took the name of Sooffee, Sefi, or Suphi; 
and hence came the monarchs of that race to be designated, even 
in European courts, by the name of the Sophi , without any ad¬ 
ditional title. But the princes of the Sooffee descent were too 
sensible of the value of stationary laws, moral and religious, to 
