muzd himself. They are all called "immortal saints," and each rules over a special province of creation. These are in their origin personifications of abstrac- tions, representing the gifts of Ormuzd to his worship- pers. Ahriman has also a council of six (later seven) evil beings, the counterparts of Ormuzd's councillors, who work evil in the spheres over which the latter preside. Under these, on each side, are hosts of other spirits. Those of Ormuzd are the "good spirits," head- ed by Sraosha and the Fervers, invisible protectors of all created beings. Ahriman has the Devas or Uivs, the exact contraries to these. The two principles are considered as co-equal and co-eternal in the past ; nei- ther is absolutely victorious as yet. Their strife ex- tends throughout all creations; every existing thing is ranged on one side or the other; nothing can be neutral. But at the last three prophets sprung from Zoroaster will appear, who will convert all mankind to Zoroastrianism ; evil will be conquered and annihilated ; Ahriman will vanish forever, and creation will be re- stored to its primitive purity. — A later development still was made to save the unity of the Supreme. It was therefore held that the two principles emanated from a being called Zarvan-Akarana, time without bounds, into whom they will again be in the end ab- sorbed. This doctrine rests on a misinterpretation of texts in the Avesta (see Hang, Essay, p. 20 sq., 264). It is, however, still held by the Parsees in India as well as in Persia. Man is represented as created by Ormuzd in purity and holiness; but through the temptation of the Divs he fell, and became exposed to sin and evil. Every man is bound to choose whether he will serve Ormuzd by good deeds, industry, and piety, or Ahri- man by the contrary vices. According as he chooses, so is he rewarded or punished in another world. For Zoroaster had taught the hope of a future life. Ac- cording to him, there are two intellects, as there are two lives — one mental and the other hodiiy ; and, again, there must be distinguished an earthly and a. future life. There are two abodes for the departed — Heaven (Garo- Demana, the House of the Angels' H3'mns, Yaziut, xxviii, 10 ; xxxiv, 2 ; comp. Isa. vi, Revelat., etc.) and Hell (Drajo-Demana, the residence of devils and the priests of the Deva religion). Between the two there is the Bridge of the Gatherer or Judge, which the souls of the pious alone can pass. There will be a gen- eral resurrection, which is to precede the last judgment, to foretell which Sosiosh (Soskyans), the son of Zo- roaster, spiritually begotten (by later priests divided into three persons), will be sent by Ahura-Mazda. The world, which by that time will be utterly steeped in wretchedness, darkness, and sin, will then be renewed ; death, the archfiend of creation, will be slain, and life will be everlasting and holy.
The Zoroastrian creed gradually became corrupted, until, in the time of Alexander Severus, Ardshir " Aria- nos" (comp. Mirkhoud, ap. de Sacy, Memoires sur div. A ut. de la Perse, etc., p. 59), the son of Babegan, called by the Greeks and Koinans Artaxerxes or Artaxares, who founded the Sassanide dynasty, caused the complete restoration of the partly lost and partly forgotten books of Zoroaster, which he effected, it is related, chiefly through the inspiration of a Magian sage, chosen out of 40,000 Magians. The sacred volumes were then trans- lated out of the original Zend into the vernacular, and disseminated among the people at large, and fire tem- ples were reared throughout the length and the breadth of the land. The IMagi or priests were all-powerful, and their hatred was directed principally against the Greeks. "Far too long," wrote Ardshir, the king, to all the provinces of the Persian empire, " lor more than five hundred years, has the poison of Aristotle spread." The fanaticism of the ])riests often found vent also against Christians and .Jews. The latter have left us some account of the tj'ranny and oppression to which they as unbelievers were exposed — such as the pro- hibition of fire and light in their houses on Persian
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fast-davs, of the slaughter of animals, the baths of piiri- Hcatioii', and the burial of the dead according to the Jewish rites— iirohibitions only to be bought off by heavy bribes. In return, the Magi were cordially liated by the Jews, and remain branded in their writ- ings by the title of damons of hell {Kulua/iiu, 72 a). To accept the instruction of a Magian is pronounced by a Jewish sage to be an offence worlliy of death {Shabb. 75 a, 15C b). This mutual animosity does not, how- ever, appear to have lung continued, since in subse- (juent times we frequently tind Jewish sages (Samuel the Arian, etc.) on terms of friendship and confidence with the later Sassauide kings (comp. Jloed Kuton, 26 a, etc.).
From the period of its re-establishment, the Zoroas- trian religion flourished uninterruptedly for about four hundred years, till, in A.D. 051, at the great battle of Nahavand (near Ecbatana), the Persian army, under Yezdezird, was routed b}' the caliph Omar. Under Mohammedan rule, the great mass of the inhabitants were converted to the religion of Islam. A verj' small number, still clinging to the ancient religion, were for many centuries the victims of constant oppression. Mah- mud the Ghiznevide, Shah Abbas, and others, were con- spicuous by their untiring persecution of them ; and the manner in which they were held up to general detesta- tion is best shown by the position assigned them in most popular Mohammedan tales as sorcerers and criminals. They were hunted down with such ferocity that they became nearh' exterminated, and after untold suffering for two hundred years a colony found its way to India. Those that remained in Persia, being permitted to reside only in one district and under the most mortifying re- strictions, gradually sank into ignorance and degrada- tion, and procured a precarious living by performing menial labor; but, notwithstanding all this oppression, they have always maintained the character of honest, chaste, and industrious citizens. At present there are, according to the very latest information, about eight thousand Guebres (as they are now called) scattered over the vast dominions of their ancestors, chiefly in Yezd and twenty-four surrounding villages. There are a few at Teheran, a few at Ispahan, at Shiraz, and some at Baku, near the great naphtha mountain.