it, for it was what had been told for every new age, before it arrived, that a great personage would appear—in fact the presiding genius, Cyrus, or Messiah, of the Cycle.
In addition to all these prophecies, which are in themselves sufficiently striking, there is yet another very celebrated one respecting Zeradusht, which is noticed by Mr. Faber. He maintains, and I think proves, the genuineness of this famous prophecy of Zeradusht, who declared that in the latter day a virgin should conceive and bear a son, and that a star should appear blazing at noon-day. “You, my sons,” exclaimed the seer, “will perceive its rising before any other nation. As soon, therefore, as you shall behold the star, follow it whithersoever it shall lead you: and adore that mysterious child, offering him your gifts with profound humility. He is the almighty WORD, which created the heavens.”[1] This prophecy, Mr. Faber observes, is found among the Celts of Ireland, ascribed to a person of the name of Zeradusht,[2] a daru or Druid of Bockhara,[3] the residence of Zeradusht (whose mother was called Dagdu, one of the names of the mother of the Gods). He shews by many strong and decisive proofs, that this can be no monkish forgery of the dark ages.
Amongst other arguments against its being a forgery, Professor Lee observes, that the very same prophecy, in the same words, is reported by Abulfaragius to have been found by him in the oriental writings of Persia. This prophecy thus found in the East and in Ireland, and in the Virgini parituræ, of Gaul, before noticed, previous to the Christian æra, is of the very first importance. It cannot have been stolen from the Christian books, but they must have been copied from it, if either be a copy, (which yet may not be the fact,) for they are absolutely the same. It cannot have been copied from the Jewish prophets, because there is nothing like it, not a word about a star at noon in any of them. This prophecy is alluded to in the gospel of the infancy: “Ecce! magi venerunt ex Oriente Hierosolymas, quemadmodum prædixerat Zoradascht, erantque cum ipsis munera, aurium, thus, et myrrha.”[4]
The star above spoken of, was also known to the Romans. “Chalcidius, a heathen writer who lived not long after Christ, in a commentary upon the Timæus of Plato, discoursing upon portentous appearances of this kind in the heavens, in different ages, particularly speaks of this wonderful star, which he obseryes, presaged neither diseases nor mortality, but the descent of a God among men: Stellæ, quam à Chaldæis observatam fuisse testantur, que Deum nuper natum muneribus venerati sunt.”[5] Nothing can be more clear than that the Romish Christians got their history of the Star and Magi from these Gentile superstitions.
These prophecies have been equally troublesome to the priests and to the philosophers. The divines would have been very glad of them, but the adoption of them carried with it the shocking consequence, that God must have had such bad taste, as to have preferred even the wicked pagans
- ↑ Vol. II. p. 97.
- ↑ This Zeradusht is no other than the person generally called Zoroaster by our old authors. Now I learn from the learned oriental Professor Lee, of Cambridge, that the latter orthography is a complete mistake, and that in all the old oriental authors it is spelt Zeradusht. I think this furnishes a very strong proof of the real antiquity and genuineness of the Irish records: for if they had been merely compiled or formed from the works of the Western nations, they would have had the Western mode of spelling the word, and would not have had the Eastern mode, of which they could know nothing. It proves that they had this word direct from the East, and not through the medium of Western reporters.If I mistake not, another equally striking proof of the same kind may be found in the word Dagdhu, the mother of the Gods. Circumstantial evidence of this kind excels all written evidence whatever. This is worth the whole of the chronicles of Eri. Dagdhu is הוא eua or eva דג dg, Eve the propagatrix.
- ↑ Bochara means place of learning.
- ↑ Jones on the Can. Vol. II. Part iii. Ch. xxii. S. 7.
- ↑ In Timæum, Platonis, p. 19, apud Hind. Hist. of Maurice, Vol. II. p. 296.
