The question which next arises for our consideration is, whether such volumes represent the tenets of an ancient faith, or whether they are the fabrication of men who have, possibly in the wreck of an old worship, brought about by war or other calamity, endeavoured to create a new religion out of the relics of one or more old ones. In favour of the antiquity of the Avesta are the facts that the great god, Ahura Mazdao, seems to be almost identical with the Aura Mazda of the Persepolitan inscription of Darius. But in proof of its untruthfulness as a representative of pure Persian tradition, we find the book introducing Devs and Ahuras,—the counterpart of the Devas and Asuras of the Vedas, only reversing their character—we also see Indra mentioned as a devil, whilst Siva and Mitra are introduced as Sharva and Miltra. (Haug's Essays on the Parsee, Bombay, p. 230, 1862). If, therefore, we allow that there is some of the old Zoroastrian doctrine to be found in the Avesta, we must equally grant that such teaching has been modified by hatred of a rival faith. Yet herein is another question, viz., Was the antagonism between the doctrines of the Avesta and of the Vedas contemporary with the origin of the two systems, or was the teaching of the Avesta the result of its author's coming into hostile conflict with Vedic teachers, as they possibly might have done after Alexander had opened a highway for intercourse between Persia and Hindostan?
On weighing the subject as impartially as I can, it seems to me that the Avesta contains a great deal of the Ancient Persian faith, but that it will be the safest plan for us to describe what is known of the Persian and Median faith from other sources, rather than take our information mainly from this doubtful source. Herodotus tells us of his own knowledge (B. i, c. 131, seq.), that the Persians, about b.c. 450, did not erect statues, temples, or altars—that they sacrificed on lofty hills to high heaven, the sun, moon, fire, water, and the winds, and that this had been a custom from time immemorial Sacrifice was attended by a priest or magus, and prayer and praise were offered, not for themselves alone, but for all the Persians, and especially for the king.
In about the year 521 B.c., Darius, king of the Medes, caused be made, in three languages, upon a rock at Behistun, an inscription of considerable length. The one which is in the Persian tongue has been translated by Rawlinson (Royal Asiatic Society Journal, vol 10). In it, the king acknowledges Auramazda as his god, and speaks of him as the Jews did of Jehovah. This epithet is explained by two Sanscrit roots (Op cit., vol. x., p. 68), and may be paraphrased as "The Lord or giver of life," "The great Creator," or "The Eternal," and the king in a doubtful passage refers to "the evil one" (?), who by lies deceived the rulers of certain states, inducing them to rebel, and then left them to be conquered by the Ormazd-governed Darius. In the Babylonian copy "lies" are as it were personified. Whilst in the Scythian version, translated by Mr Norris (Op cit. vol. xv., p. 144), we find the account run thus: "These are the provinces which became rebellious, 'the god of lies' made them rebel that they would subvert the state, afterwards Ormaza delivered them into my hand." The "lies," or the god of lies, we very naturally associate with the being whom we call in our time the devil, who is spoken of (John viii. 44) as a liar, and the father of falsehood, who was so from the beginning [—Greek—], and consequently regarded as coeval with the "father of light."
We next turn to such evidence as is given us in the book of Job. We select this ancient writing in consequence of the strong internal evidence there is, that it was written by some one about the period of the Achaemenian dynasty living in Persia (see Rawlinson in Journal of B. A. Soc., vol. 1, new series, p. 230). In Job we find two distinct powers spoken of, the one being the Good God, and the other Satan the opposer. The last is regularly described as if he had the power to cause war, devastation, tempest, disease, and death, for ch. ii., v. 6, lets us infer that he might have killed Job had he been so minded and God allowed the bargain, and in verse 19 of the same chapter we find him killing all the sons and daughters of the patriarch. Job clearly recognised the necessity of sacrifice for purification, for sanctification, and he seems not to have offered this upon any altar, in any temple, or with the intervention of any priest. It is clear that Job had never heard of Moses or the writings assigned to him. The persecuted patriarch and his friends all believe that punishment in this life is the result of offences committed against the Good God, but all seem to be singularly free from the idea that Satan is the cause of Job's sufferings either directly or indirectly. There is throughout the book no reference made to a preceding or a succeeding condition of man, such as obtained amongst the Brahmins, and it is doubtful whether the Persians believed in heaven or hell. When man died he was supposed to perish. Hence we conclude that the doctrine of the resurrection was not prevalent at the time the story was written, and in the country where the writer of the book of Job resided. Equally unknown to that author, whoever he was, were the ideas about angels, ministers of God, or disembodied spirits. These were of Babylonian origin. We must now, to carry on the thread of the argument, recal to mind the fact that Babylon was taken by the Medes and Persians, that the rulers of the united people often made that city their residence, that Herodotus tells us (B. 1, c. 135) that "the Persians are of all nations most ready to adopt foreign customs," and I may notice, in passing, that the same authority states that the two nations were scrupulously truthful, ceremoniously cleanly, and intolerant to leprosy. It is well known, moreover, that even after the commencement of our era Babylon was the chief seat of Babbinic and Talmudic lore.
When we examine into the religion of the Babylonians we find that they believed in the existence of angels—minis-, ters of the Supreme—intelligences,—unseen by man, yet powerful to act in his favour, or against him. If we rightly interpret many of the engraved gems which were executed by the Chaldees, we can only come to the conclusion that they believed in a Devil, a Typhon, or spirit of destruction.
We next must call attention to the fact that the Jews were conquered by the Babylonians, and enslaved in Mesopotamia for very many years—that they were subsequently emancipated by the Medo-Persians, and that the latter, whom from the inscription of Darius we believe to have been devout, permitted and even encouraged the Israelites to entertain the faith which they then held, and even assisted them to rebuild their temple. This permission, and the friendliness of Nehemiah with the Median monarch, seem to show a great similarity, if not an identity, between the Persian and the Jewish creeds.
If, then, we could frame any definite idea of the tenets held by the Jews before they came into contact with the Babylonians, and those which they professed afterwards, we might form a conception of what they got from the Chaldees, the Medes, and the Persians respectively. Without going very deeply into the matter, we may say that Hebrew scholars generally allow that the ideas of Satan—a power opposed to that of God, and of angels or spirits, were introduced between the captivity and the period when the scriptures were translated into Greek, and that the notion of a future life and the resurrection of the dead, was developed after the time of the Septuagint, about b.c. 277.
From the preceding considerations we draw the inference that the idea of the resurrection of the dead, of a future state of existence, in which each will be punished or rewarded for what had been done by him in his mortal condition, was not a portion of the original Median, Persian, Babylonian, or Jewish religion. A mass of circumstantial evidence has led me to believe that the idea of a Heaven for the good and a Hell for the bad, came from those who professed what we will call the Vedic or the Buddhist faith. If, in reply to this, it is alleged that it may have come from the Greeks directly, the rejoinder is simply this—that the Grecians, as Aryan colonists, brought with them only a rude notion of a futurity, which they were the medium of improving, when, through the influence of their arts and arms, they opened a highway to India both by sea and land. Those who could import into their armies such huge beasts as elephants, could far more readily import a new article of faith, if it pleased the priests.
If our reasoning is sound, we cannot, I think, regard the Avesta as a trustworthy exposition of the ancient teaching of Zoroaster. On the other hand, we must, in my opinion, consider it as a book fabricated to serve a particular purpose. In this respect it resembles our own Bible, which was composed for the glorification of the Hebrews when smarting under a series of ignominious defeats and enslavements; and then enlarged, contracted, or altered, to suit emergencies.
The following table will assist the reader to compare or contrast the religion of the Medo-Persians with that of the Hebrews in some matters:—