after Christ the Shechina was believed to be still preserved in the synagogue of that city.17 The Jews in Babylonia maintained for over a thousand years the semblance of a political organization under their Exilarchs, or Chiefs of the Captivity, who claimed to be descended from the royal house of David, and the celebrated Jewish traveller, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, found populous Hebrew communities there as late as the twelfth century. The learning there culti vated was so highly prized that for many ages the most eminent teachers of the Law in Palestine were Babylonish Jews. Thirty-two years before Christ, the Rabbi Hillel, one of the three most distinguished of all the Jewish doctors, was invited from Babylon and elected president of the great Sanhedrim. The institution of the Synagogue is believed to have originated in Babylonia. There too were the rabbinical high-schools of Nehardea, Sora and Pumbadita,18 where thousands of Jewish youth were instructed in the religion and jurisprudence of their nation, and where was collected and elaborated that vast body of tradition, specu lation and exegesis composing the Babylonish Talmud. `And all the while the daily affairs of life would bring together the Jew and the Zoroastrian on every highway, in every caravan, bazaar, and place where men congregate, so that an interchange of opinion was unavoidable. We also know that several of the leading Jews and Rabbins found favor and exercised influence at the Persian court. Nehemiah was an officer in the household of Artaxerxes. Mar Samuel, rector of the college of Nehardea in the middle of the third century, was on terms of intimacy with Ardeshir Babegan, and conciliated his favor for the Jewish people; and by tempering his graver sense with a sprinkling of humor, made himself so agreeable and influential in the palace of Sapor his son, that the Jews gave their Rabbi the nick-name of King Sapor. The king himself confessed this influence by declaring his gratification that he had never unnecessarily taken the life of a Jew. Ifra, the mother of Sapor II., was 17 Fürsts Cultur-und Literatur-Geschichte der Juden in Asien, i. 8. 18 As many as 1200 students attended the lectures of Abba Areka, commonly called Rab, at the high school of Sora in the first quarter of the third century; and 100 years later the discourses of Rabba are said to have drawn together a concourse of 12,000 persons during the two last months of the academic year. Id. 68. a great patroness of the Jews, made the chief rabbins her almoners for the poor of both races, and often interceded with her fierce, though illustrious, son, saying: "Do not meddle with the Jews, for their God grants them whatever they ask." Other Jewish doctors, too, like Rab Ashe in the latter part of the fourth century, had privileges at the palace; and King Yesdijird I. had so little of orthodox intolerance as to favor both Jews and Christians.19 But an end came at last to these centuries of harmony. The palmy days of Jewish scholasticism passed away. The continual wars with the Romans wasted all the provinces from the Tigris to the Mediterranean. A succession of kings from Yesdijird II. (A. D. 442) harassed the Jews by a series of persecutions, till the synagogues and schools were closed in 473 by royal edict. The productive labors of the Rabbins declined, and finally ceased, and about A. D. 498 the Talmud was terminated. A passage in the New Testament,20 and an early tradition preserved by Eusebius, seem to indicate that the Apostle Peter preached the gospel within the boundaries of the Parthian empire. However that may be, Christianity was early propagated in the East, and Bardesanes of Edessa, who wrote in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, mentions its spread in Parthia, Media, Persia and Bactria. In these countries. the Christians enjoyed a considerable degree of quiet, if not complete toleration, and by the reign of Sapor II. they had many flourishing societies and included many officers of the royal service. The bishop of Selucia, Ctesiphon, was the head of the Persian church, and maintained a constant communication with Rome. The presence of so many Christians with their churches, schools, teachers and books could scarcely have been without some effect on the surrounding population; yet their influence was always subordinate to that of the Jews: partly because the books and doctrines of both were to a great extent the same, and partly because the Jews had occupied the ground centuries before the Christians, and maintained it about a hundred years later. There were several circumstances greatly to the disadvantage of the Christians. The Magi, of course, opposed them with the usual bigotry of a priesthood; and the Jews hated them with all the enmity of those who agree in the main, but differ in details, and they easily found means to fill the royal ear with tales of treasons nursed in the Christian churches. But what gave point and opportunity to every accusation was the fellowship of the eastern Christians with their brethren of Rome, while the cross had be come the standard of the Empire, and hereditary warfare was waged between the two nations. Thus there was easily formed what we should call, in modern nomenclature, a Native Persian party; and it was intimated to Sapor that the bishop of Ctesiphon, with the concurrence of his church, carried on a treasonable correspondence with Constantius. The king sent for the heads of the church, and required of them a prescribed pledge of loyalty. This was in the year 343. Simeon, bishop of Ctesiphon, believing a compliance with the terms of the order inconsistent with his obligations as a Christian, made a spirited refusal. The king replied: "Whereas Simeon scorns my authority, and obeys the Roman emperor, whose God alone he worships, but utterly despises my God, he must present himself before me and be executed." Thus began, if not the first, at least the first considerable persecution of Christians in Persia.21 From that time any influence they might have had on the established religion of the country ceased. A series of persecutions, relieved indeed by intervals of rest, yet sometimes extremely violent, aggravated at times by their own impru dence and fanaticism, harassed and weakened the Persian Christians, while the Magi became ever more bigoted and impervious to foreign teaching. On the other hand we are not sure of a single doctrine ever generally received by the Christian Church which can be traced to direct intercourse with the followers of Zoroaster. In the course of the many centuries, however, during which the disciples of Moses and of Zoroaster lived together in harmony, some mutual infiltration of ideas was scarcely to be avoided. The point of most interest, as well as difficulty, is to determine which party were the learners, and what were the lessons. We shall have no difficulty in believing that each adopted something from the other; and we hope to satisfy our readers, as we are fully convinced 21 Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, ii. 105. ourselves, that the Parsees were the principal gainers in the amount, if not also in the quality of the exchanges. It has already been shown that the Persians were remarkably imitative, and susceptible to foreign influences; while it is well known that of all people the Jews clung with most tenacity to the customs and ideas of their fathers-"Accursed shall be he who keepeth a pig or teacheth his son the wisdom of the Greeks." 22 This consideration alone would go far to determine which people would be most likely to learn from the other. Again, which people had most to teach? At the time of their first contact (B. C. 538) the Persians were a nation of herdsmen and soldiers, among whom academic education aspired to little beyond horsemanship, archery and veracity. It is doubtful if they even possessed the art of writing, and certain that they had no documents which left any distinct mark on succeeding times; while the Hebrews were a people already past the best days of their literature, as well as of their power. The greater part of their history had been written. The most illustrious of their prophets and poets had slept with their fathers, leaving their compositions a legacy for the admiration of all ages. It will not be denied that the law of the Pentateuch, with its peculiar and stringent provisions, existed nearly in its present form at the close of the captivity, we might rather say before the captivity. We think that after admitting all that the freest modern criticism demands, it will be conceded that at that time the Jews had their religious system and literature, and the priestly and levitical orders very fully developed and organized, and were in general much attached to them. How then is it conceivable that these men should consent to sit at the feet of illiterate Gentiles in hopes to learn the lessons of a diviner wisdom? It matters not that the Hebrews were a fallen and dependent people, and the Persians powerful and victorious. Athens, stripped of her violent crown, still continued till the age of Justinian to teach literature, science and philosophy, to all-conquering Rome. When we spread before us on the same table Isaiah or Jeremiah on the right hand and and the best hymns of the Yasna on the left, and read them side by side, it seems to us utterly incredible that the com 22 Gfrorer's Philo und die Alexandrinische Theosophie, ii. 350. panions of Ezra would forsake their own fountains of living waters, and turn away to the sterile rock, to broken cisterns that hold no water. The only Persian compositions which have any chance of being as old as the time of Ezra, are the Gathas, of which the following is as favorable a specimen as we can select: "Through the holiest spirit and through the best purpose, Riches and understanding, fulness and immortality. Who hast created the cow for us as a benificent gift, Who hast given her fodder and sufficiency according to thy wisdom, Since thou hast held communication with men." 23 This wierd and mystic hymn wakes no responsive chord in the breast of the captive Jew sitting beneath the willows of Babylon longing and languishing for his native land; while the promises of his own Isaiah are more acceptable to him than bread and wine to one who is ready to perish. It is from the returned Jews that we have received the Scriptures; and they were likely to have their minds too fully occupied by the exciting scenes through which they were passing, by their own anxieties and hopes, and by the teachings of Moses and the prophets to think much of adulterating their sacred books with the unwritten legends of their new friends. We have read the Yasna and the Vendidad several times with some degree of care, and have not found an idea or expression so like any thing in the Old or New Testament as to afford a presumption of a common origin. And no other of the Magian books was extant until very long after the closing of the Old Testament canon. Nor does it appear probable that either any possible esoteric doctrines of the Magi, nor yet the diffused superstition of the populace has had any perceptible effect on Judaism as it stands in the Bible. The ideas, when not puerile and unworthy, 23 Yasna, alvi.· 20 VOL. XVIII. |