as a new-born infant, ignorant of its way, and requiring as much care on its first entrance into the spirit-world as it had on its arrival in this: and the prayers of friends are for the protection of its weakness against the assaults of the Evil One. But Serosh, like a tender nurse, takes the infant soul in charge, and, together with Dahman, Astad and Rasne-rast, conducts it on its way.69 At the dawn of the fourth morning they come to the bridge Tchinevad, which spans over the chasm between the top of Mount Albordj and the shores of the unseen world, while hell, like a dark flood, lies beneath it. Here the stranger is made to give an account of the deeds done in the body, and his past actions are weighed in a balance, the good against the evil.70 If the latter preponderate, he is straightway dragged down to those darksome regions where Ahriman and the deevs receive him with ribald jests, entertain him with viands offensive to the palate, and take a malicious pleasure in making him wretched. But if the scale of good actions prove heaviest, the soul passes on unharmed, accompanied by the heavenly Izeds and the dogs that keep watch at the bridge, thus guarding the gates both of heaven and hell, while the fravashis of the pure make intercession for him before the throne of Ormazd. “Then Bahman rises from his golden throne and says,How hast thou come, pure one ? From the perishable world to the imperishable.' The pure souls go in peace to the golden thrones of Ormazd and the Amshaspands, to Gorotman, the dwelling of Ormazd, the dwelling of the Amshaspands, the dwelling of the other pure beings." 72

It is often urged by Dr. Spiegel that this judgment and award on the fourth day after death is inconsistent with the doctrine of a general resurrection, which cannot therefore have been an article of faith at the time when this part of the Vendidad was written. The conclusion, however, is not fully borne out by the premises, and presumes among the fragmentary remains of an ancient religious literature a severe consistency which we have no reason to expect. A precisely similar incongruity exists in the doctrines of the Christian Church, where it is generally held that the soul passes immediately to its account and reward, and yet is to

69 Sadder, p. lxiii. Afrin of Dahman. 70 Boundehesh, Afrin of the Seven Amshaspands. Vd. xix. 91. 71 Yasna xxxi. 20. 72 Vd. xix. 100.

be united to the body, judged, and sent to its proper destination at the end of the world. And this paradox existed from the foundation of the Church.73 By means of the testimony of Theopompus the Magian belief in a final resurrection is traced beyond the time of Alexander the Great, and it is several times referred to in the Yasna and Vendidad, the oldest books of the canon.

At the respective periods of four days, nine days, a month and a year after death, the relatives perform various rites, and make gifts and offerings for the benefit of the soul of the deceased. At the same time it is forbidden to mourn for the departed. On this point there is a very remarkable passage. The conducting angel says to Ardai Virâf:

"The river that you see before you is composed of the tears of mankind; tears shed (against the express command of the Almighty) for the departed; therefore when you return again to the earth, inculcate this to mankind, — that to grieve immoderately for the departed is, in the sight of God a most heinous sin."74

This precept, however, it is found impossible fully to enforce in practice.

On the last five days of the year, called the Farvardians, the spirits of the damned enjoy a temporary release from their gloomy prison-house, and are allowed to re-visit the scenes of their earthly sins and sorrows. At such times the prayers of the living may avail to redeem the lost; for the Persians, like the Japanese, would never accept the idea of a hell from which there was no redemption. Hence it is the duty of every one to pray for all the dead, kindred, friends, and strangers- for all who have worn the garment of flesh, and stained it with their deeds · one knows who has need of such intercession, or who may be profited thereby. Those who, from the enormity of their sins or the feebleness of the intercession, fail to obtain a release, are remanded back to their dungeon for another year, or even to the great resurrection.75

for no

73Compare Luke xxii. 43, Acts vii. 59, 2Cor. v. 8, with John vi. 39, 40, 44, 54, 1 Cor. xv. 52, 1 Thess. iv. 16, Luke xiv. 14, John v. 29, Heb. vi. 2. 74 Ardai Virâf Nameh 53, also Sadder. Porta 97. 75Patet of Iran and Anquetil's Zendavesta ii. 131.

Alpha and Omega. One of the first efforts of the awakening human mind is an attempt to form some short-hand and comprehensive system of all that was and is, and is to be,some theory of the beginning and end of all things. What am I? where am I? who brought me here? whence came I? and to what shore am I drifting on this onward stream of time? are questions which all ages have asked. We are therefore not surprised to find many speculations and guesses in the Magian books respecting the origin and history of the universe. These speculations are for the most part comparatively late, the earlier books furnishing only occasional and scanty allusions. The Gâthâs recognize two twin deities, Ormazd and Ahriman, and do not look beyond them for any simpler first cause, the doctrine of Zervana-akarana being, as has been shown, a subsequent introduction. All authorities agree in ascribing to these two the origin of all created things. Ormazd produced first the celestial spirits,76 and then, with their aid, created the world and its inhabitants. As the Jews limited the period of creation to the week, their cardinal measure of time, so the Mazdayasnas distributed it over a larger, but more natural and obvious cycle. According to them Ormazd made the world in a solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days beginning about the vernal equinox. In forty-five days he finished the heavens, in sixty days the waters, in seventy-five the earth, in thirty the trees, in forty-five the animals, and man in seventy-five days more." On the completion of each section, he took a rest of several days which six periods of relaxation became the great yearly feasts. The principle here followed is precisely the same as that of the book of Genesis, the distribution of the work into six parts, even the order of the parts, the resting, and the institution of sacred days, are all identical-everything but the length of time.

As this analysis of creation is found only in compositions dating considerably after the Christian era, we have no doubt of its being an exaggerated imitation of the Hebrew cosmogony. Yet this is the older and simpler doctrine, while the Boundehesh extends the period of creation to three thousand years, and fills it with many grotesque and puerile details, which are not very clear, and appear often

76 Yesht of Ardibihist.

77 Afrin of Gahanbar.

to be contradictory. Among them will be found many of the principal speculations of orthodox Christianity, as embodied in Paradise Lost. According to this account Ahriman remained idle in his abode of outer darkness all the while that Ormazd was creating the heavens and the earth; but when he saw the great works of his illustrious opponent, he bestirred himself and made the deevs. Ormazd then created the fravashis and proposed to clothe them with bodies. and send them to inhabit the new-made earth, saying, by way of encouragement, "In the end I will re-establish you in your present estate; ye shall be happy, ye shall be immortal, without the infirmities of age, without ill. I will protect you forever against the enemy." Immediately the fravashi of the first man volunteered to enter the world. Ahriman in the meantime made a grand military review of all his deevs and marched to attack heaven. There the heavenly Izeds fought against the besiegers ninety days and nights, repulsed them, and drove them back to hell. The arch-enemy next approached the earth in the disguise of a serpent, and from his trail vermin and all evils spread. He infected every thing he touched, and there was nothing to which he did not affix some curse. He wounded the primal bull, who appears to have been at that early period the only living inhabitant of the earth-so that venerable animal fell sick and died, leaving in his last words an injunction to treat with humanity the animal tribes that should spring from him. At the instant of his death Goshuroun, the Ized of the herds, sprang from his left fore leg, and Gaio-merethna, Gayomard, or Kaiomorts, the primal man, was produced from the corresponding member, while all other animal and vegetable productions were eventually formed from different parts of his decomposed body. Gayomard was a handsome young man, and lived and reigned a king without subjects thirty years, although Ahriman had assigned one thousand deevs to fight against him. Forty years after his death a tree sprang from a certain portion or relic of his body, and bore for fruit, according to one passage, ten varieties of human beings; but according to the principal account it was in some way transformed into two Meshia and Meshiane, the first man and woman. Ormazd promised to receive them at last into heaven if they would faithfully keep the law and not trust or worship the deevs; but those evil genii came

and brought them fruit and persuaded them to eat. By this act of transgression they fell from their high estate, and all lost its peculiar advantages. For a long time they picked up a precarious subsistence by following the chase, and clothed themselves with the skins of the animals they caught. At the end of fifty years, Meshiane had a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, and subsequently seven similar pairs. The first parents died at the age of one hundred. No history is given of any but a single couple of their children - Siahmak and Veshak. These became the parents of a pair of twins, from whom in turn sprang fifteen pairs of twins the progenitors of as many races of men. No one will fail to recog

nise in all this, snatches of Jewish and Christian dogmas travestied and mingled with old myths that had undergone a gradual degradation by having a literal meaning forced upon their symbolic language. The idea that these points of resemblance, and a great number of others, were borrowed by Jew or Christian from the Persian is excluded by the single fact that the books which embody them were all composed several hundred years after the establishment of Christianity, and the Boundehesh, the principal one, not until the religion of Jesus had been published in the East and in the West seven hundred years.

The Minokhired and the Boundehesh attempt to account more particularly for the existence of evil by asserting that Ormazd and Ahriman entered into a covenant in the beginning which was to extend to nine thousand years, the total duration of the world. During that time Ormazd, although otherwise possessing the power, could not destroy Ahriman or his works on account of his promise; but why he ever made such a compact with the Evil One is, of course, not very clearly explained. But for the first three thousand years Ormazd and his works were to be undisturbed; this was the Eden time, or golden age of the world — in the Boundehesh the three thousand years of creation. During the second similar period good and evil were to be freely mingled together. This is the time of actual history. For the last three thousand years Ahriman was to reign unrestrained; and this period corresponded to the "Messiah's woes," and "time of great tribulation," expected in the last days by the Jews and Christians.78 At the end of the Luke xxi. Rev. viii. to the end of the book. See

78 Matt. xxv.