Part 22 (2/2)

A chorus speaks, consisting of a company of the faithful supposed to be present, or of the Ameshospends, the personified attributes of Ahura, and praise the Lord for his bounty and for the wisdom he makes known; but asks whom he has endowed with the Good Mind, or, as we might say, the Holy Spirit, to make known to mortals his doctrine.

The call of Zarathustra, intimated in the foregoing verse, is overlooked, as if it were impossible that such a one as he could undertake the office. Ahura replies, repeating his commission to Zarathustra, here called also by his family name of Spitama, and promising to establish him and make him successful in his work.

The Soul of the Kine speaks, lamenting still that no adequate lord has been a.s.signed her. Zarathustra is a feeble and pusillanimous man, not one of royal state who is able to bring his purpose to effect.

The Ameshospends join in the cry for the true lord to appear.

Zarathustra then speaks, accepting the mission in an address to Ahura, whom he entreats to send his blessings of peace and happiness, since none but he can give them, and to set up in the minds of the disciples of the cause that joy and that kingdom which, though it first comes inwardly, yet brings with it also all outward blessings.

For himself also he prays that the Good Mind and the Sovereign Power (another of the attributes) of the Lord may hasten to come to him and strengthen him for his mission.

This poetical rendering of the call of Zarathustra is free both from miraculous embellishment and from undue exaltation of the person of the prophet, and forms a great contrast to later statements in the Avesta, where the prophet is placed in secret conclave with Ahura, asking him questions and receiving detailed replies which at once rank as revelation. In the Gathas, allowing for the theological and poetic form, everything is human and natural. We are strongly reminded of the accounts of the calls of prophets in the Old Testament--there is the same choice by the deity of an apparently weak instrument to accomplish a work urgently called for by the times, the same sense of insufficiency on the part of the prophet, but the same absolute confidence on his part in the power of the deity, and hence the same absolute a.s.surance, once the mission is accepted, that the cause which he has been called to carry forward must succeed. In many of the following Gathas the same parallel is strongly impressed on the mind of the reader. The sense of weakness is expressed again and again--the prophet has no victorious career, but is exposed to much gainsaying, which he feels acutely. Yet he never doubts that his G.o.d is with him, and is working for him. To him he commits his doubts and fears, of his goodness he is joyfully a.s.sured, and his aid he expects with confidence. He is entirely devoted to Ahura and his cause, and offers himself up with his whole powers to work out the divine will. He will teach, he says, as long as he is able, till he has brought all the living to believe. He is conscious of a divine power working in him. Nothing in himself, he is strong by the divine grace which Ahura sends him: his words have efficacy to keep the fiends at a distance, and to advance in men's minds the divine kingdom; like St. Paul he feels his message to be to some a savour of life unto life, to others a savour of death unto death.

The Doctrine.--And what is the message he proclaims? It is a philosophy of the origin of the world, but a philosophy the acceptance of which involves immediate and strenuous action. The distracted condition of the world before him requires to be explained, so that a remedy for it may be found; and Zarathustra prays, when he is about to bring forward his doctrine, that Ahura would help him to explain how the material world arose. The explanation when it appears is not quite new, it has been shaping itself already in the mind of his people, but he sets it forth as a dogma, and draws from it at once all its practical consequences. In the third hymn of the first Gatha he solemnly brings forward his doctrine before the people, and appeals to them, not as a people, but as individuals, each for himself, with a full sense of his responsibility, to consider it, and adopt it, and act upon it. It is the doctrine of dualism, not in the fully developed later form in which two personal potentates divide the universe between them from the first, but as yet in a form more speculative and vague. There are two primeval principles, spirits, things, as is well known--the expression is indefinite--the counterparts of each other, independent in their action, a better and a worse, and Zarathustra calls on his audience to choose between them, and not to choose as do the evildoers. The world, as it is, was made by the joint action of the two principles, and they also fixed the alternative fates of men, for the wicked, h.e.l.l--the worst life; and for the holy, Heaven--the best mental state. After the creation was accomplished, the two principles drew off from each other, the evil one making choice of evil and of evil works, and the bounteous spirit choosing righteousness, making his strong seat in heaven, and taking for his own those who do good and who believe in him. The Daevas and their followers are incapable of making a just choice between the good and the evil; they have surrendered themselves from the outset to the ”Worst Mind,” the demon of fury, and to all evil works. (There are vague suggestions here of a temptation and a fall, but only of the evil spirits and their followers.) From this point onwards the world is filled with a great struggle. On the one side is Ahura, the only G.o.d wors.h.i.+pped by name in the Gathas. Ahura is a heaven-G.o.d, he is, in fact, the bright heaven, and then the good and beneficent being who dwells in brightness. In the hymns he is losing his definite character and becoming an abstraction, a G.o.d of dogmatics rather than of history.

He is the good principle personified, and as becomes a G.o.d of such transcendent character, he does not act directly, but through his satellites. His attributes personified, do his bidding, aid the saints in spiritual ways, and prepare for the better order of things.

On the other hand are the Daevas with the demon of wrath, who propagate everywhere lies and mischief, and heap up vengeance for themselves against the final judgment. For the good there is nothing better than to aid,--for they can aid, in bringing on the renovation, dwelling with Ahura even now, and by his attributes which work in them as well as in him, reinforcing the righteous order, and preparing themselves to dwell where wisdom has her home. In the end the Demon of the Lie will be rendered harmless and delivered up to Righteousness as a captive.

Inconsistencies.--As it happens in every such reform, the new teaching is not quite consistent with itself; old views are taken up into the new teaching, although they do not harmonise with it; the spiritual way of looking at things alternates with a more worldly way. The following are some examples of this:--The great doctrine of Heaven and h.e.l.l as inner states, as being simply the best and the worst state of mind, is clearly announced; but the traditional view of future abodes of happiness and misery also appears. The Kinvat-bridge is mentioned several times in the Gathas, over which Iran conceived that the individual had to pa.s.s after death. If he was righteous the bridge bore him safely over to the sacred mountain, where the good lived again; if he was wicked, he fell off the bridge and found himself in the place of torment. It is another inconsistency that Zarathustra expects, on the one hand, to convert the world by his preaching, while on the other hand his sense of the antagonism between the good and the evil spirits and their followers often hurries him into violent methods. One hymn concludes with a summons to his adherents to fall on the unbelievers with the halberd, and he is constantly predicting their sudden overthrow. Along with this, we may mention that he sought to ally himself with powerful families for the sake of the support they would bring the cause. The name of Vishtaspa, king we know not of what realm, is always a.s.sociated with the prophet as that of his royal patron; other influential friends are also mentioned. Another point, in which we notice accommodation to existing usage, is that of sacrifice. The Gathas have several n.o.ble pa.s.sages describing the true sacrifice man has to offer to G.o.d for his goodness, as consisting simply in the offering of self, in the devotion to the deity of all a man is, and all he can do. At the same time Zarathustra has not a word to say in disparagement of the sacrifice of victims. He prays for guidance in this part of religious duty; he desires to have everything connected with sacrifice done in the best way and with the most effective hymns. Thus the spiritual life is not left to stand alone. There is a personal walk with G.o.d, our piety is said to be G.o.d's daughter in us, his righteousness is working in us and moulding us for his purposes; both will and deed of the good man are attributed to him, and the processes are described with true insight by which the soul is sanctified and wedded to her task and her true destiny; but at the same time there is an intent looking to that sacred Fire which is an outward representative of deity; there is the offering of victims, even of horses, when the prophet's mind is bent on war (the Homa-offering does not occur, and we may suppose the prophet rejected this service of the deity by intoxication); there is the smiting of the demons with prayer, and imprecations, similar to those in the Psalms, against adversaries of the cause.

It is no proof of unspirituality that the welfare of the Kine, with whose wail the call of the prophet began, is steadily kept in view during his mission. The agriculturists are on the side of the righteous being, good and ever-better tillage is a means of pleasing him; it is his will that the kine should be freed from alarms and should prosper; and he may be appealed to to give lessons with a view to that end. The doctrine pa.s.ses far beyond its first occasion; yet the occasion which called for it is never lost sight of.

The Gathas, taken alone, tell us hardly anything of the religion in which Zarathustra's fellow-countrymen believed. They believed undoubtedly in many G.o.ds; in those parts of the Avesta which come next to the hymns in time, polytheism is in full force. That Zarathustra only speaks of one G.o.d, Ahura (though he also speaks of ”the Immortals” generally), may be due to the limited extent and special purpose of the hymns, but it may also be taken as an indication that the prophet did not needlessly interfere with the beliefs of his people: content to preach the doctrine with which he was charged, and which was to him the sum and substance of all religion, he, like several other religious founders, stirred up no strife he could avoid. The doctrine he preached was not unprepared for in the mind of his country, and continued to be the leading feature of Persian religion in subsequent periods.

It is a momentous step in religious progress, which the prophet of Iran calls on his countrymen to take. We notice the main features of the advance.

1. Man is Called to Judge between the G.o.ds.--Zarathustra, like Elijah, puts before his people the choice between two wors.h.i.+ps.

Various distinctions between the two cases might be drawn. In the Scripture case Baal is not a bad G.o.d, but simply the wrong G.o.d for Israel to wors.h.i.+p. In the case of our reformer the difference between the two wors.h.i.+ps is a deeper one. The individual is to choose his G.o.d, he is to declare of his own motion that one G.o.d is better than others, and that no wors.h.i.+p whatever is to be paid to these others.

This was a new departure in antiquity; the early world loved to think of many G.o.ds, all alike divine and wors.h.i.+pful, each race or clan having its G.o.d whom it naturally served, or each part of the earth being portioned out to a divine lord of its own. Neither Greece nor Rome ever thought of making the individual man the arbiter among the unseen beings whom he knew, and requiring him to decide which of them he should consider divine, and which he should disown. In the case before us, moreover, the choice is to be made on moral grounds. Men are called to judge of the character of the beings who are called G.o.ds, they are told that there is no necessity to acknowledge those of whom they disapprove, they are emanc.i.p.ated from the fear of hurtful and evil beings. There is war in heaven, and men are encouraged to take part in that war, and to cast off allegiance to such powers as do not make for righteousness. How there came to be such strife among the G.o.ds, and how it became necessary that men should judge of it, we have no clear information; we only know that the momentous step was called for and was taken.

The belief, however, remains even after the decision that there are unseen evil beings, who had influence in forming the const.i.tution of things, and who have influence still over the government of the world. The position taken up is not monotheism. The good G.o.d is not sole creator or sole governor of the world, he is a limited being; from the outset he has only in part got his own way, and he has adversaries in the very const.i.tution of things, whom he cannot get rid of. Persian thought is dualistic; the conception of an Evil Creator and Governor co-ordinate with the good one differentiates it from the thought of India, which always tends to a principle of unity.

2. In the second place, this religion is essentially intolerant and persecuting. Having chosen his side in the great war which divides the universe, man can only prosecute that war with all his force; he must regard the Daevas and their followers as his enemies, and try to weaken and extinguish them. The general feeling of the ancient world about differences in religion was that all religions were equally legitimate, each on its own soil. The Jews, we know, shocked the Greeks and Romans greatly by denying this, and maintaining that there was only one true religion, namely, their own, and that all the others were wors.h.i.+ps of G.o.ds false and vain. But the Persians came before the Jews in this; the Gathas preach persecution, and the insults offered by Persian kings in later times to the religions of Egypt and Greece were no doubt justified by their convictions. In Persia, as in Israel, religion had come to entertain the notion of false G.o.ds. And a religion which entertains that notion must be exclusive. Those who have refused to wors.h.i.+p beings. .h.i.therto deemed G.o.ds, on the ground that they ought not to be wors.h.i.+pped and are not truly G.o.ds, cannot but desire to bring the wors.h.i.+p of such beings entirely to an end, and to make the wors.h.i.+p of the true G.o.d prevail instead, by rude or by gentle means, as the stage of civilisation may in each case suggest.

Growth of Mazdeism.--After the Gathas proper we have other hymns written in the Gathic dialect, from which the history of the religion after its foundation may be to some extent inferred.[3] These show that the Zarathustrian religion was regarded, after the departure of the founder, as a great divine inst.i.tution, and was worked out on the lines he had laid down. The forms of it became of course more fixed.

The G.o.d it serves is now called ”Ahura Mazda,” the ”All-Knowing Lord”

(the name is afterwards contracted into the Greek Oromazdes, the Persian Hormazd; and the religion is called from it Mazdeism); he is still implored for spiritual blessings both for this and for the future life, and for furtherance in agriculture. There is, however, a tendency to address prayer not only to Ahura himself but to beings connected with him. As if the mind wearied of dwelling on the one supreme, the Bountiful Immortals are a.s.sociated with him, the parts of his holy creation are invoked, the fire which is most closely identified with him, the stars which are his body, the waters, the earth, all good animals and plants. The kine's soul receives sacrifice, and not only the kine's soul which we have met before, but the souls of ”just men and holy women,” the Fravas.h.i.+s or spirits not only of the departed but of the living also, the service of which continues and increases henceforward in Persian religion. These are invented deities and have a shadowy character; but G.o.ds of more substance, and more historical reality also came into view at this point. Zarathustra becomes a G.o.d, the hymns themselves are adored; the Homa-offering reappears, Mithra is often coupled with Ahura, other old G.o.ds creep back and are mentioned along with the moral abstractions, which also increase in number; in one pa.s.sage there are said to be thirty-three objects of wors.h.i.+p, a number which also occurs in India.

[Footnote 3: Yasna Haptanghaiti, _S. B. E._ x.x.xi. p. 218, _sqq._, and others following.]

Organisation of the Heavenly Beings.--With all this multiplication there is, as we shall see, no compromise of the supreme claims of Ahura. In some of the hymns, all beings, all attributes, all places, and all times of a sacred nature are heaped indiscriminately together, in interminable catalogues. But this apparent confusion is corrected by a remarkable tendency to organisation. The Persian religion ultimately came to have a very simple and very striking theology; and that theology was made up by transforming the abstractions in which the founder dealt, into persons, and arranging them after the pattern of Oriental society. In the later Yasnas (liturgies) a figure rises into view which the Gathas do not mention; that of Angra Mainyu, later Ahriman, the Bad Spirit. In this counterpart of Spenta Mainyu, the Good Spirit (who is not at first identified with Ahura, but proceeds from him), the demons obtain a personal head, and the dualism which appears in all nature and all human society is thus brought to a personal expression. Ahura and Ahriman confront each other as the good power and the evil. Both alike had part in making the world what it is. In every part of the world, and in all that is felt and done they are at strife. Ahura, to quote Mr. Darmesteter, is all light, truth, goodness, and knowledge; Angra Mainyu is all darkness, falsehood, wickedness, and ignorance.

Whatever the good spirit makes, the evil spirit mars; he opposes every creation of Ahura's with a plague of his own, it is he who mixed poison with plants, smoke with fire, sin with man, and death with life.

The Attributes of Ahura.--Each of these beings has his retinue. That of Ahura was formed first; it consists of his attributes. Even in the hymns the attributes are regarded as persons, inseparable companions of Ahura; appeals are made to one or another of them, according as the wors.h.i.+pper seeks help from one side or the other of the divine being. By a process which frequently occurs in religious thought, they afterwards come to be more formally arranged and defined; there are six of them, and each is charged with a province of the divine economy. They are as follows:

Vohu Mano (Bahman) Good Mind; he is the head and the guardian of the living creation of Ahura.

Asha Vahista (Ardibehesht), Excellent Holiness; he is the genius of fire.

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