He was to be preceded by Hom, the first apostle of the law, whom Jemshid followed. This king and prophet erected but few fire-temples; mankind venerated the elements and the stars, not without a number of evil genii, and a gross superstition began to prevail. For opposing this and renewing the primitive law, Zardusht appeared.—A. T.
[520] It appears quite conformable with true psychology to derive the origin of the evil spirit from jealousy, as was said in the [note] at p. 236, or from apprehension, doubt, suspicion, or envy, as above.—A. T.
[521] According to the Boun Dehesh (Zend-Avesta, t. II. pp. 347-348), Ormuzd will during three thousand years move alone; during three other thousand years, his operations will be blended with those of his adversary; the subsequent three thousand years will belong to Ahriman; and in the last three, completing the period of twelve thousand years, the author of evil shall disappear; and at the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of the bodies—previous to which event are to appear the three posthumous sons of Zoroaster (see [note], pp. 281-282)—the world shall be without evil during all ages.
The ultimate fate of Ahriman is stated in the Vendidad Sadé Izeshné and Vispered, as follows (Zend-Avesta, t. I. 2. P. p. 169): “That unjust, that impure being, who is a Div but in his thoughts; that dark king of the Darwands, who understands nothing but evil; he shall, at the resurrection, recite the Avesta, and not only himself practise the law of Ormuzd, but establish it even in the habitations of the Darwands.” Moreover it is said (Zend-Avesta, t. II. pp. 415-416), that Ahriman, that lying serpent, shall at the end of ages be purified by fire, as well as the earth be freed from the dark abode of hell; Ormuzd and Ahriman, accompanied by all the good and evil genii, shall sing the praises of the author of all good.”—A. T.
[522] Záíd and Amru are two names which grammarians use in giving an example for any two individuals, such as may be said A. and B.—A. T.
[523] The author of the Dabistán names no other famous teachers or sectaries of Magism, after the death of Zoroaster, besides Ardai Viraf, Azarbád, and Mazdak: he treats of this last in particular in the subsequent section, previously to which we cannot omit adverting to Mani or Manes, whose name occurs in this book but once occasionally, as that of a painter (see [note], p. 205). He is however much more reputed as the founder of a new doctrine, called from him Manichæism, which spread its ramifications widely through the Christian world. According to several authors, Mani was a Christian priest, and pretended to act the part of Paraclet, the announced successor to Jesus Christ; according to Khondemir, he endeavored to substitute himself for Mohammed, to whom that prophecy respecting a Paraclet was applied by the Muselmans. However it be, Mani’s Enghelion, or Gospel, has not been preserved, nor any other work written by himself; the books of his followers too, such as could be found, were burnt. His religion is stated to have been a mixture of Magism, Brahmanism or Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianism; Shahristani, often quoted in this work, and Mohammed Ibn el Nedim el Werrak, author of the Fehrist (a history of literature), agree in representing his doctrine as a branch of Magism with some Christianism ingrafted upon it.
The two points attributed to Mani by the commentator of the Desátir, namely, the permission to kill harmless animals, and the prohibition of sexual intercourse, belong rather to the ethical or practical, than to the theological, part of his religion, which distinguished itself by particular dogmas and opinions relative to the duality of principle, good and bad, light and darkness, involving other metaphysical questions. These, we know, were common to other religions in all times. Before Manes, Christian sects combined the said principles with the dogmas of their religion: so did the followers of Basilides, Marcion, Bardesanes, Valentius, and others. These, as well as after them the disciples of Manes, happen to be not seldom confounded with the Gnostics, which name was applied to different sectaries, chiefly Neo-platonics, from the earliest to later times of Christianism. The Manichæans rejected the Old Testament entirely, and partly the New, which they interpreted according to their opinion. They disputed about the nature of Jesus, and modified Christian theology; they believed a region inhabited by God and the pure spirits, prior to the creation; a world, created of an eternal and self-existing matter; ten heavens and eight earths; two empires, the one of light and the other of darkness; the last, ruled by the great Lord, called “matter;” demons with material souls and bodies; the soul no part of the divinty, but united with the body to govern it; two souls in every man; the propagation of souls; a transmigration of souls into animals; the stars, and every thing in nature, even the stones, animated; the rotundity of heaven and of the earth; antipodes; and other theses too many to be all enumerated in this place. They had besides particular rites of worship, from which the veneration of the sun, the moon, and other stars, was not excluded; they were averse to matrimony, and generally austere in their manners. See about this extensive subject the Mémoires of the learned Abbé Foucher, in the Hist. de l’Acad. Royale des Insc. et Belles-Lett., t. xxix, and the work quoted, Hist. crit. de Manichée, by Beausobre.—A. T.
The fifteenth section gives an account of the tenets held by the followers of Mazdak.—Mazdak was a holy and learned man, contemporary with king Kobad; his religion was extensively diffused, but he was at last put to death by the illustrious Nushirvan; his tenets were as follow: from the commencement without beginning, the world had two creators; the agent of good, Yazdan, “God,” or “light;” and the agent of evil, Ahriman, or “darkness.” The supreme God is the author of good, and from him proceeds nothing but good; consequently, intelligences, souls, heavens, and stars are his creation, in all which Ahriman has no share whatever; the elements and their combinations are, in like manner, the productions of the Lord; the influence of fire imparts warmth to those stricken with cold; the breathing of the winds gives coolness and ease to those consumed by heat; the water satisfies those parched with thirst; the earth is the place of ambulation. In like manner, their combinations, such as gold and silver among minerals; the fruit-bearing trees among vegetables; the ox, horse, sheep, and camel, of animals; the pious and beneficent among mankind, are his creation: but the consuming of animals by fire; the destruction of living creatures by the sultry simoom (wind); the foundering of ships in floods; the cutting bodies asunder by iron, or their being pricked by thorns; rapacious and noxious animals, such as lions, tigers, scorpions, serpents, and the like, are all the works of Ahriman; and as he has no share in the empyreal heaven, they style it Behisht; but as he possesses a joint authority in the elemental world, opposition has consequently arisen, and no form subsisting in it is possessed of permanent duration. For example: the Almighty bestows life, and Ahriman puts to death; life is the creation of God, death that of Ahriman; God produced health, Ahriman, pain and disease; the Bestower of blessings created paradise, Ahriman, hell; the worship of the Lord is therefore most meet, as his kingdom is immense; and Ahriman has no power, except in the elemental world; in the next place, the spirit of every one devoted to God ascends on high, but that of Ahriman’s servants abides in hell. Wisdom therefore requires the man of intelligence to separate himself from the Ahrimans; for although the author of evil may afflict such a person, yet on being delivered from the body, his soul ascends to Heaven, whither Ahriman has not the power of coming.
In some parts of the Desnad,[524] Mazdak says: “Existence arises from two principles or sources, Shíd and Tár,” i. e.: ‘light’ and ‘darkness,’ which he afterwards interprets to mean God and Ahriman. He afterwards says: “The works of light result from choice, but those of darkness from accident; light is endued with knowledge and sensation, darkness is ignorant; the mixture of light and darkness is accidental, and the disengagement of light from darkness is also accidental, and not the result of choice; whatever is good in this world is an advantage emanating from light, whilst evil and corruption arise from darkness; when the parts of light are separated from darkness, the compound becomes dissolved, which means resurrection.” Again, he says in the same volume: “There are three roots, or principles: water, fire, and earth; when these are blended together, the tendency to good or evil arising from their mixture is also accidental; whatever results from their purest parts tends to good, and whatever is derived from their grosser parts tends to evil.” He says in the same volume: “God is seated on a throne in the world, the source of all things, just as kings are on the throne of sovereignty in the lower world. In his presence are the four energies, namely, Bázkushá, or ‘power of discrimination;’ Yáddah, or ‘power of memory;’ Dáná, or ‘faculty of comprehension;’ and Surá, or ‘gladness;’ in like manner as the affairs of royalty turn on four persons: “the Supreme Pontiff, the principal Hirbud, the commander in chief of the forces, and the master of the revels. And these four persons conduct the affairs of the world through the agency of seven others, inferior to them in rank, namely, chieftain, administrator, Banúr,[525] Dairván (head of a monastery), agent, Dostúr, and slave; which seven characters comprehend under them the twelve Rawání, or ‘orbits’ of spirits, namely: the speaker, giver, taker, bearer, eater, runner, grazer, slayer, smiter, comer, goer, and abider. Whatever man unites in himself the four energies, the seven agents, and the twelve qualities, becomes in this lower world like a creator or protector, and is delivered from all kinds of embarrassment.”
It is also stated in the same volume: “Whatever is not according with the light and agrees with darkness, becomes wrath, destruction, and discord. And whereas almost all contentions among mankind have been caused by riches and women, it is therefore necessary to emancipate the female sex and have wealth in common: he therefore made all men partners in riches and women; just as they are of fire, water, and grass,” In the same volume we find: “It is a great injustice that one man’s wife should be altogether beautiful, whilst another’s is quite the contrary; it therefore becomes imperative, on the score of justice and true religion, for a good man to resign his lovely wife for a short time to his neighbour, who has one both evil and ugly; and also take to himself for a short time his neighbour’s deformed consort.”