The French travellers, Chardin and Tavernier, have given us some information respecting this great prophet, by means of the Guebers or Parsees, who are still scattered through India and Persia, and who are excessively ignorant. Dr. Hyde, Arabic professor of Oxford, has given us a hundred times more without leaving home. Living in the west of England, he must have conjectured the language which the Persians spoke in the time of Cyrus, and must have compared it with the modern language of the worshippers of fire. It is to him, moreover, that we owe those hundred gates of the "Sadder," which contain all the principal precepts of the pious fire-worshippers.
For my own part, I confess I have found nothing in their ancient rites more curious than the two Persian verses of Sadi, as given by Hyde; signifying that, although a person may preserve the sacred fire for a hundred years, he is burned when he falls into it.
The learned researches of Hyde kindled, a few years ago in the breast of a young Frenchman, the desire to learn for himself the dogmas of the Guebers. He traversed the Great Indies, in order to learn at Surat, among the poor modern Parsees, the language of the ancient Persians, and to read in that language the books of the so-much celebrated Zoroaster, supposing that he has in fact written any.
The Pythagorases, the Platos, the Appolloniuses of Thyana, went in former times to seek in the East wisdom that was not there; but no one has run after this hidden divinity through so many sufferings and perils as this new French translator of the books attributed to Zoroaster. Neither disease nor war, nor obstacles renewed at every step, nor poverty itself, the first and greatest of obstacles, could repel his courage.
It is glorious for Zoroaster that an Englishman wrote his life, at the end of so many centuries, and that afterwards a Frenchman wrote it in an entirely different manner. But it is still finer, that among the ancient biographers of the poet we have two principal Arabian authors, each of whom had previously written his history; and all these four histories contradict one another marvellously. This is not done by concert; and nothing is more conducive to the knowledge of the truth.
The first Arabian historian, Abu-Mohammed Mustapha, allows that the father of Zoroaster was called Espintaman; but he also says that Espintaman was not his father, but his great-great-grandfather. In regard to his mother, there are not two opinions; she was named Dogdu, or Dodo, or Dodu—that is, a very fine turkey hen; she is very well portrayed in Doctor Hyde.
Bundari, the second historian, relates that Zoroaster was a Jew, and that he had been valet to Jeremiah; that he told lies to his master; that, in order to punish him, Jeremiah gave him the leprosy; that the valet, to purify himself, went to preach a new religion in Persia, and caused the sun to be adored instead of the stars.
Attend now to what the third historian relates, and what the Englishman, Hyde, has recorded somewhat at length: The prophet Zoroaster having come from Paradise to preach his religion to the king of Persia, Gustaph, the king said to the prophet: "Give me a sign." Upon this, the prophet caused a cedar to grow up before the gate of the palace, so large and so tall, that no cord could either go round it or reach its top. Upon the cedar he placed a fine cabinet, to which no man could ascend. Struck with this miracle, Gustaph believed in Zoroaster.
Four magi, or four sages—it is the same thing—envious and wicked persons, borrowed from the royal porter the key of the prophet's chamber during his absence, and threw among his books the bones of dogs and cats, the nails and hair of dead bodies—such being, as is well known, the drugs with which magicians at all times have operated. Afterwards, they went and accused the prophet of being a sorcerer and a poisoner; and the king, causing the chamber to be opened by his porter, the instruments of witchcraft were found there—and behold the envoy from heaven condemned to be hanged!
Just as they are going to hang Zoroaster, the king's finest horse falls ill; his four legs enter his body, so as to be no longer visible. Zoroaster hears of it; he promises to cure the horse, provided they will not hang him. The bargain being made, he causes one leg to issue out of the belly, and says: "Sire, I will not restore you the second leg unless you embrace my religion." "Let it be so," says the monarch. The prophet, after having made the second leg appear, wished the king's children to become Zoroastrians, and they became so. The other legs made proselytes of the whole court. The four envious sages were hanged in place of the prophet, and all Persia received the faith.