«3 is there so sharp a distinction between the heat of noon and the cold of ni^,du, between the brown bare rock and the verdant meadow, between the gorgeous hues of watered plains and the absolute bareness of arid wastes. Nowhere does life mer^e ia death as it does here, without intermediary shade or transition.' It was not until long after the classic age that the Greeks got some insight into the real significance of the religion of Zoroaster. The mental vision of Herodotus and his successors, down to Alexander, was confined to its external aspect, its rites and their effect on the worshippers. That which deeply impressed them was the fact that the Persians, unlike other nations, set up no statues to the supreme god within their temples, where he was supposed to dwell.' Nevertheless, here, as in the rest of the world's surface, the mind of man needed a tangible form that should stand for and reflect the image of the deity ; and is not light, which reveals the world to us, the first of all earthly goods ? Light is inseparable from heat, and without them life could not be carried on in the world. Fire, the fountain at once of light and heat, thus became the symbol of Ahura- Mazda, as the deadly chill of night ^vas that of Angro-Mainyfis ; tire, therefore, was kept ever burning on the altar, and received the homage and offerings destined for the deity, the sacrifice of the fiery steed, the noblest animal, and libations of Haoma, the Vedic Soma. As time rolled on this simple creed became overloaded with minute prescriptions, that caused it to degenerate into a formalism narrow and complicated in the extreme, as far removed from its primeval simple conception as can well be imagined, when it undoubtedly was freer from gross or inhuman superstitions, and more spiritual than that of any other people of Anterior Asia. The ethics logically deducible from a belief in the co-existence and everlasting conflict between the two principles were of a lofty nature, and very practical at the sam6 time. Man was bidden to look upon himself as the associate and fellow-worker of Ahura- Mazda; for as the latter struggles without ceasing against the powers of evil, even so does man, in the sweat of his brow, labour ' The ancients were not tknr in aoticing similar contiasts, and Justin (XVI. L) thus describes the dinuite of the Parthians ; " Ex quo fit ut Fartfiue pierage finlum aut aestus aut frigoris magnitudo possideat, quippe cum montes nix et campoftlMlUS infesteL" This is also well brought out in the tine description of the Elbun range ((JoBiNEAU, //is/, des Ferses, torn. i. ch. viii. book I).
- Herodotus, I 1 74.
Digitized by Google
