which he brought to Xiz, whence it was propagated to other altars. This fire was fed incessantly with wood stripped of its bark, and even the breath of the priests was not allowed to blow upon it, so that they approached it with their mouths covered. The superstitious reverence for fire spread to the Greeks and Romans, among whom a sacred flame was preserved by priests and vestals. It is probable that the worship of fire was founded on a knowledge of the fact, that God had appeared to Moses in the fire in the bush †.

The manner in which the Persians expressed their veneration for the sun and the elements, seen's described by Ezekiel, where he declares himself to have beholden in vision "at the door of the Temple of the Lord, "between the porch and the altar, about five "and twenty men, with their backs toward "the Temple of the Lord, and their faces to"wards the East, and they worshipped the sun towards the East."

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The Persians originally believing that the Divine Nature was not to be circumscribed by walls, worshipped the Divinity in the

* Strabo, lib. xv. p. 1010. Edit. Faloner.

Exod. iii. 2-4.

Ezek. viii. 16. M. Foucher Traité Histor. Acad. des Inscrip. vol. xxv. p. 113.

open air and on high places, having neither temples or statues. Zoroastres, however, built every where temples to cover the altars on which the sacred fire was cherished. It appears, therefore, that though this ancient people had preserved some traditional knowledge of the patriarchal faith, yet, in many instances, they had changed its doctrines, particularly with respect to the nature and attributes of God; thus, instead of worshipping exclusively one great and eternal Being, they reverenced two independent principles, one of good, the other of evil; the former, according to Aristotle, called Oromasdes, and by the Greeks, Jupiter; the second Arimanes and Orcus. Zoroastres corrected these errors, by teaching that both these principles were subject to the Supreme God, the Creator of light and darkness *, being acquainted possibly with what Isaiah had declared of God," that he formed light, "and created darkness-he made peace, and "created evil +." Words directed (prophetically) as Prideaux has observed, to Cyrus; and intended, in his opinion, to refer to the Magians, whom he supposes to

Pococke and Hyde, c. ix. Prideaux, Part I. Book iv. + Isaiah xlv. 7.

have existed as a corrupt sect in the time of Cyrus, and to have been reformed by Zoroastres *.

In order to avoid the difficulty of considering God as the author of evil, Zoroastres represents it not as originally created, but as resulting from the defect of good, inculcating a doctrine so far consistent with the facts related by Moses, concerning the fall; but which is mingled with other notions, in which truth and falsehood are blended. He supposes the world to have been created by two distinct agents, the one, the angel of light, the other, the angel of darkness, subordinate indeed to the Supreme Being, but forming all things by a mixture of light and darkness; waging a perpetual contest with each other, which will terminate only with the end of the world; when a general resurrection and day of retribution shall take place, and the angel of darkness and his followers shall be condemned to eternal suffering, but the angel of light and his followers shall be separated to eternal reward.

* Berosus states that the Persians worshipped images. Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad Gent. oper. Vol. ii. p. 57. Edit. Potter.

The works of Zoroastres, judging of them not only from the fragments of Hyde, but from other accounts, appear to have indicated an acquaintance with many other particulars of Revelation and Sacred History *.

In treating of the Creation, he supposed it to have been completed in six periods, composing three hundred and sixty-five days. He spoke of the Deluge, of Joseph, of Moses, and of Solomon; and he borrowed many precepts from the Hebrew Legislator, with relation to clean and unclean beasts, purification, the priesthood, and tithes. He transcribed much from the Psalms of David, and inculcated the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, of a resurrection, and of a final judgment, with an assurance derived probably from the writings of Daniel †, and other prophets.

Amidst the precepts of wisdom interspersed through the works of Zoroastres, were laws framed with unworthy views, as those which seem designed to countenance the incestuous. marriages of the Sovereigns of the East;

* Pococke, Specim. Hist. Arab.-Hyde Præfat. p. 5. and Prid. Part I. Book iv. Mem. de l'Academ. des Belles Lettres, Tom. xxvii.

† Chap. xii. 2, 3.

and others on the subject of wine, which gave great offence, and led probably to some of the regulations of Mahomet upon that subject.

The general character, however, of the religion, improved as it was by the intermixture of revealed instruction, justly raised its reputation, and the reverence maintained for it by the Persians procured to them the praise of a religious people.

It is probable that many of the sublime sentiments of piety, which, according to Xenophon, enlightened the mind and regulated the conduct of Cyrus, and which led him to favour the Jews, were originally deduced from the Hebrew prophets, and possibly recommended to the Persian Monarch by the writings of Zoroastres. It was the wisdom also infused from them into the system of Zoroastres, which rendered his religion an object of choice to Pythagoras, and conferred upon it a reputation which led Numa to imitate his modes of obtaining communications with some pretended Deity.

It appears then that there may be some reason to think that Zoroastres, who possibly was only a temporary adherent to one of the Hebrew prophets, was rendered instrumental by