That Magism was not, as commonly stated, a Per sian institution, is shown from several considerations —1. The word does not appear to have existed in the Zend language ; at any rate, it does not occur in the Zend Avesta ; z. The religious system of the ancient Persians was a system of Dualism, as the most ancient documents concur with the monu mental evidence to prove (see Rawlinson's He roa'otus, i. p. 426), but with this Magism had no affinity ; 3. In the Zend Avesta, the Ydtus, the practiser of magical arts, is vehemently de nounced, and men are enjoined to pray and present offerings against his arts, as an invention of the Dews ; 4. Xenophon informs us (Cyrop., viii. t. 23) that the Magi were first established in Persia by Cyrus (comp. also Ammian. Marc. xxiii. 6; Porphyr., de abstin., iv. 16, etc.) ; a statement which can be understood only, as Heeren suggests (I. i. p. 451, ff.), as intimating that the Magian institute, which existed long before this among the Medes, was introduced by Cyrus among the Persians also ; 5. Herodotus (i. tot) states that the Magi formed one of the tribes of the Medes ; and he also attributes the placing of the pseudo Smerdis on the Persian throne to the Magi, who were moved thereto by a desire to substitute the Median for the Persian rule (iii. 61, ff. ; comp. Ctesias, Persica, c. to-15; Justin, Hist., i. 9 ; and the Behistun inscription as translated by Sir H. Rawlinson ; see Rawlinson's Herodotus, i. p. 427); 6. Herodotus mentions that, after this attempt of the Magi had been frustrated, it became a usage among the Persians to observe a festival in celebra tion of the overthrow of the Magi, to which they gave the name of Magophonia (Aa^yo4ovia), and during which it was not safe for any Magus to leave the house (iii. 79 ; Agathias, ii. 25), a usage which could have had its origin only at a time when Magism was foreign to Persian beliefs and institutions ; and 7. We find no allusion to the Magi in connection with any of the Medo-Persian kings mentioned in Scripture, a circumstance which, though not of itself of much importance, falls in with the supposition that Magism was not at that time a predominant Persian institution. The probability is, that this system had its source in Chaldma, was from that propagated to Assyria, Media, and the adjoining countries, and was brought from Media into Persia, where it came at first into collision both with the national preju dices and with the ancient religious faith of the people. With this accord the traditions which impute to Zoroaster, after he came to be regarded I as the apostle of Magism, sometimes a Parthian and sometimes a Bactrian origin.
Zoroaster, as the Greeks named the famous teacher and lawgiver, whom the Persians called Zerdusht, flourished in the reign of a king Gush tasp, who has, on apparently sufficient grounds, been identified with the Darius Hystaspes of the classical writers (Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. p. 234)•* Zoroaster is commonly spoken of as the great reformer of the Magian system after it had suffered corruption ; but it would be more correct to say, that on the primitive Dualistic worship of the Persians he superinduced some notions borrowed froM the element-worship, with which Magism at a later period coalesced. His doctrines, as far as they can be gathered from the extant fragments of the Zend Avesta, especially the Vendidad Sade, and from the Ulemai Islam (a treatise on the Parsee doctrine by an Arabic writer, supposed to belong to the 6th or 7th cen tury of our era), relate principally to theology and ethics, with occasional references to questions of a cosmological and physiological character. His
theology is fundamentally Dualistic. The problem of the world in relation to God he answers by reference to the antithesis of light and darkness, good and evil ; all things according to him con sist in the mingling of antitheses. His primary principle is the Zerwane Akerene, the Endless Time (with which may be compared the ra airetpov of Anaximander ; see Arist. Physic. i. 4, 5 ; iii. Everything save time has been made. Time is the Creator—itself infinite, absolute, eter nal. From the mingling of fire and water sprang Ormuzd, the luminous, the pure, the fragrant, devoted to good and capable of all good. Gazing into the abyss, he beheld afar off Ahriman, black, unclean, unsavoury, the evil-doer. He was startled at the sight, and thought within himself, I must put this enemy out of the way ; and set himself to use the fit means for this end. All that Ormuzd accomplished was by the help of Time ; the Eter nal Time produced the god Ormuzd ; and after the lapse of two years the heavens and paradise were made, and the twelve signs which mark the heavens were fixed there. Each sign was formed in moo years. After the first three were formed, Ahriman arose to make war on Ormuzd, but fail ing of success he returned to his gloomy abode, and remained there for other 300o years, during which the work of creation advanced, and three other signs were made. During this period the earth and the sea were also formed, man was created, and plants and animals produced. Again Ahriman assailed heaven with all his might, but failing in this, he attacked the world. He afflicted Kajumert, the first man, with a thousand plagues till he was destroyed ; but was himself taken and driven into hell through the same open ing by which he had come. into the world. In man there is much of Ormuzd and much of Ahri man ; in his body are fire, water, earth, and air ; he has also soul, understanding, judgment, a ferver (` principe des sensations,' Anquetil), and five senses. By the soul are moved all the mem bers we possess, and without the soul we are nothing. All these he has from Ormuzd. From Ahriman he has desire, need, envy, hatred, im purity, falsehood, and wrath. When a man dies, the four elements of which his body is composed mingle with the four primitive elements ; his soul, understanding, and judgment, unite with the fer ver, and all become one. In this state man goes to judgment, and according as his good works or his bad works have preponderated during life, he is rewarded with immortality in paradise, or punished by being cast into hell. During life he is in constant conflict with the Dews or Diws, a class of beings possessing a body formed of the four ele ments—beings essentially evil, and who tempt men to sin ; but at the resurrection they shall be anni hilated, and all men at last shall be received into paradise. Even Ahriman himself shall be accepted and blessed ; for the Dews are gradually abstract ing from him the evil and darkness that are in him, so that at last he shall be left pure and bright (see Hyde, Hist. Rd. Vet. Pers., Oxon. 1700 ; Anquetil do Perron, Send Avesta, 3 vols. 4to, Par. 1771 ; Fragnzente lib. die Rd. des Zoroaster, Bonn 1831).