THE ETHICS OF ZOROASTRIANISM: AN IDEAL OF COMBAT
I. PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS WHICH CREATED THE ETHICAL TYPE
[Sidenote: Religious dualism]
In view of the mixed good and evil in the world, thinkers of antiquity,
outside of Israel and before the rise of the Stoic philosophy in
Greece, could not conceive the universe as being set in motion and
directed by one God infinite at once in power and goodness. Even the
most penetrating intellect of Greece faltered in his search for unity:
“We cannot suppose,” says Plato, “that the universe is ordered by one
soul; there must be more than one, probably not less than two--one the
author of good, and the other of evil.”[302] The seers of Israel alone
reached with perfect conviction the height of the great argument, and
announced confidently that He who is the author of the good in the
world is the author likewise of the evil: “I form the light and create
the darkness; I make peace and create evil,” are the words which the
prophet Isaiah puts in the mouth of Yahweh.[303]
The religious thinkers of Persia never reached this lofty viewpoint. It
seemed to them, as it seemed to the Greek philosopher, that at least
two deities must have been concerned in the creation and ordering of
the universe. They believed in the existence of two great powers: a
good being, Ahura Mazda, the creator of light and of all beneficent
things; and an evil being, Ahriman, the author of darkness and of all
baneful creatures. Between these two powers they conceived to be going
on a fierce struggle for the mastery, in which ultimate victory was
assured to the good Ahura.[304]
This Persian world philosophy reacted favorably upon the moral
character, and, as we shall see further on, contributed to create in
ancient Persia a deep consciousness of the eternal distinction between
good and evil, a profound sentiment of duty, and an active, strenuous
morality.[305] It is when contrasted with the world philosophy of
Brahmanism and Buddhism that the ethical value of this dualistic
philosophy of the old Persian thinkers is best disclosed.
[Sidenote: Conception of the
character of the supreme god,
Ahura Mazda]
While it is true that the moral qualities attributed by a people to
their gods are nothing more nor less than the moral qualities possessed
or revered by this people themselves, still it is also true that the
moral nature thus given to the gods reacts powerfully upon the ethical
life of their worshipers and tends to mold their moral character after
the heavenly type. In a word, celestial morality is at once effect and
cause.
In the case of no other people of antiquity, except the people of
Israel, did the conception of deity exercise a greater influence upon
morality than in that of the ancient Persians. The supreme being,
Ahura Mazda, was conceived, as we have already noted, as the creator
of the light and of all good things, as the god of righteous order
and benevolence. He was the lover of truth. Truth was the innermost
essence of his being, as love is the innermost essence of the God of
Christianity. Farther on we shall see how this conception of deity
formed the mold in which was cast the Persian ideal of moral excellence.
[Sidenote: The ethical character
of Mithra]
Ahura Mazda was the god of the sky. As time passed, Mithra, the
god of the sun, gradually came into greater prominence and finally
quite eclipsed the at first supreme deity, Ahura. As the solar god
he appropriated the ethical attributes of the sky god and became
preëeminently the god of light, the champion of truth, and the avenger
of lies. He it is who, when not deceived, establisheth nations in
victory and strength.[306]
It was from this solar deity that Zoroastrianism in the later
pre-Christian centuries was called Mithraism, under which name, as we
shall see, it entered the Greco-Roman world and there became a chief
competitor with Christianity for the control and guidance of the moral
life of the European nations.
[Sidenote: Doctrine of the
sacredness of the elements--fire,
earth, and water]
The principle of Persian world philosophy which, next after that of
the divided government of the universe, had probably the greatest
consequences, and those not wholly favorable, for Persian morality,
was the principle of the purity and sacredness of the elements--fire,
earth, and water. From this principle or belief were deduced endless
ritual requirements whose aim was to preserve these elements from
pollution, or to restore their purity after defilement, and thus one
large division of the moral code embraced mainly artificial duties,
duties which had no vital relation to natural morality, that is, to
conduct deriving its sanction from the natural feelings of moral right
and wrong.
[Sidenote: The personality of a
great reformer, Zarathustra]
As the great moral systems of Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity,
and Mohammedanism bear each the impress of the moral consciousness of
some great teacher, so is it with Zoroastrianism. For the moral ideal
of Persia, while doubtless largely the creation of the ethical feelings
and convictions of the Iranian race, developed through many centuries
of race experiences, nevertheless bears the unmistakable imprint of
a unique personality. That the Zarathustra of tradition represents a
real historical personage, there can hardly be longer a reasonable
doubt.[307]
The time of Zarathustra’s mission probably falls in the first half
of the sixth century B.C. He thus belongs to that era in the history
of antiquity when, at various centers of culture, reform movements
announced the opening of a new epoch in the moral evolution of the
human race.[308] The sum of what we may believe to have been his moral
teachings was that man’s full duty is purity and sincerity in thought,
word, and deed, and an untiring warfare against evil.
II. THE IDEAL
[Sidenote: The essence of the
moral life]
The distinctive character of the Persian moral ideal was determined
by the Persian dualistic world philosophy. The essence of the moral
life is a struggle against evil. The good man is the strong fighter
with Ahura against Ahriman and all his creations. There was no
place in the ideal for those ascetic virtues--celibacy, fasting,
self-mortification--which conferred sainthood in India.[309]
The married state was regarded as superior to the unmarried: “He who
has children,” says the Zend-Avesta, “is far above the childless
man.”[310] Fasting was condemned as ungodly, for “no one who does not
eat has strength to do heavy work of holiness”;[311] the well-fed man
can fight better than the one who lessens his vitality by fasting, can
withstand the cold better, “can strive against the wicked tyrant and
smite him on the head.”[312] The Zoroastrians regarded Christianity, in
the form in which they knew it, with disapproval, because it exalted
celibacy and made fasting a virtue.
This moral ideal which made life a strenuous battling for the right
was, after the ideal of the Hebrew prophets, the loftiest developed by
the ancient world. As we shall see immediately, it tended to make the
morality of the ancient Persians “a morality of vigor and manliness.”
[Sidenote: Truthfulness the
paramount virtue]
Among the special virtues making up the moral ideal, the highest place
was assigned the virtue of veracity. It is noteworthy how this virtue
was, if not created, at least fostered by the Persian conception of the
supreme god, Ahura Mazda, whose symbol was the light.[313] As Ahriman
was the god of deceit and lies, so was Ahura the god of sincerity and
truth. This thought of deity made truthfulness a supreme virtue, for
man must in all things take for his model the good spirit on whose side
he battles.
Various testimonies bear witness to the high place assigned in the
scale of virtues to veracity. There was to be no liar among those
persons whom the Persian Noah (Yima) was commanded to bring into the
great underground abode, that the earth might be repeopled with a
superior race after the deadly cold of the long winter.[314] The
punishment provided in the Zend-Avesta for false swearing was terrible.
The very first time one knowingly tells a lie unto Mithra (the god
adjured in taking an oath), “without waiting until it is done again,”
he shall be beaten on earth with twice seven hundred stripes, and below
in hell shall receive punishment harder than the pain from the cutting
off of limbs, from falling down a precipice, from impalement.[315]
What is especially noteworthy here is that Zoroastrian morals
recognize the universality of the law of truthfulness and require that
contracts made even with the unfaithful be faithfully kept: “Break
not the contract,” says the sacred law; ... “for Mithra stands for
both the faithful and the unfaithful.”[316] Even more sacred than
the engagements of kinsman with kinsman are the engagements between
nations, for while a contract between members of the same group is
thirtyfold more binding than one between two strangers, a contract
between two nations is a thousandfold more binding.[317] Here is raised
a standard of international morality to which modern statesmen and
diplomatists have not yet attained.
[Sidenote: The duty of industry;
the ethics of labor]
Industry was another cardinal virtue of the Zoroastrian ideal of
character. Labor was enjoined not only as honorable but as a sacred
duty. Wedgwood endeavors to show how this virtue was the outgrowth of
the Persian conception of the origin of the universe. In Indian thought
the world is not a creation, the work of a divine Creator; it is an
emanation from an impersonal, unconscious, primal principle. But in the
Persian world-view the universe is conceived as the work of a deity who
labors to give it form and shape. This conception of God as a worker
reacted powerfully upon the ideal of human excellence. Man must imitate
this divine virtue of labor. He must become a co-worker with the good
Ahura Mazda. Thus was labor idealized, and all work, even the most
lowly, made a sacred thing.[318]
There is in this view doubtless an element of truth, but it is probable
that this duty of industry and thrift upon which such emphasis is laid
in the Zend-Avesta was in the beginning taught and enforced by the
limited area of fruitful soil and the necessity of careful irrigation
and tillage, and that only later the virtue thus engendered received
the sanction and support of religion. We may infer this from the fact
that agriculture was the most sacred of occupations. “He who sows
corn,” says the Zend-Avesta, “sows righteousness.”[319] To sow corn,
grass, and fruit; to water dry ground and to drain ground that is too
wet--this is the duty of man.[320]
[Sidenote: Animal ethics]
The Zoroastrian code, like the _Laws of Manu_, gives a large place to
man’s duties toward the lower animal creation. But the animal ethics
of the Iranian lawgiver are much more reasonable than those of the
Hindu legislator. The Buddhist, as we have seen, is enjoined to spare
every living thing; there is no distinction made between useful animals
and dangerous beasts and noxious reptiles. To such an extreme is this
regard for all life carried that agriculture, though a permissible
because a necessary occupation, still is looked upon with disfavor for
the reason that the plow injures the beings living in the earth.[321]
On the other hand, the Zoroastrian code distinguishes between
beneficent and baneful creatures, declares the first to have been
created by the good Ahura and the latter by the evil Ahriman, and
makes it the duty of the good man to protect and treat kindly all
useful animals, and to destroy all baneful creatures, including noxious
plants, such as weeds and brambles. Hence tilling the soil is praised
as an especially holy occupation, since the plow destroys the thistles
and weeds sown by the evil-disposed Ahriman.
[Sidenote: Duty of protecting the
purity of the elements]
Another important department of Persian ethics was based on the idea of
the holiness of the elements--fire, earth, and water. Any defilement
of these was a sin, in some cases an unpardonable sin. For instance,
burying the corpse of a man or of an animal in the earth, and not
disinterring it within two years--“for that deed there is nothing that
can pay; ... it is a trespass for which there is no atonement for ever
and ever.”[322] Equally stringent were the prohibitions against the
pollution of the holy elements fire and water, through casting into
them any unclean matter.[323]
We shall perhaps best understand the moral value of such duties as we
have to do with in this division of Persian ethics, if we compare them
with those duties of the Christian code--Sabbath observances--which are
based on the idea of the holiness of a certain portion of time. The
ethical feelings evoked in the one case are akin to those evoked in the
other.
[Sidenote: The judgment of the
dead; the soul the judge of the
soul]
In the Persian judgment of the soul after death we have the most
profound and spiritual conception of the rewards and punishments of
the hereafter that has found expression in the ethical teachings of
any people. The soul is conceived as being judged by itself. Upon its
departure from this life the soul of the faithful is met by a beautiful
maiden, “fair as the fairest thing,” who says to him: “I am thy own
conscience; I was lovely and thou madest me still lovelier; I was fair
and thou madest me still fairer, through thy good thought, thy good
speech, and thy good deed.” And then the soul is led into the paradise
of endless light. But the soul of the wicked one is met by a hideous
old woman, “uglier than the ugliest thing,” who is his own conscience.
She says to him: “I am thy bad actions, O youth of evil thoughts, of
evil words, of evil deeds, of evil religion. It is on account of thy
will and actions that I am hideous and vile.” And then the soul is led
down into the hell of endless darkness.[324]
The remarkable thing about all this is that this profound and spiritual
conception of “a mental heaven and hell with which we are now familiar
as the only future state recognized by intelligent people” should
have found expression at the early period when the faith of the
Zend-Avesta was formulated. “While mankind were delivered up to the
childish terrors of a future replete with horrors visited upon them
from without, the early Iranian sage announced the eternal truth that
the rewards of Heaven and the punishments of Hell can only be from
within. He gave us, we may fairly say, through the systems which he has
influenced, that great doctrine of subjective recompense, which must
work an essential change in the mental habits of every one who receives
it.”[325]
III. THE PRACTICE
[Sidenote: Effects of the moral
ideal upon the Persian character]
In setting for man as his chief moral task a courageous warfare
against evil, the Zoroastrian ethics produced a certain exaltation of
character, and inspired strenuous activity motived by a deep sense of
duty. It created, or concurred with other causes in creating, “a race
of zealous Puritans,” a strong, self-reliant people, who disdained all
asceticism and indolence.[326] Fasting, as we have seen, was regarded
as a crime because it weakens the body and unfits one for active
exertion.
It is instructive to place the masculine ideal of Persia alongside
the feminine ideal of Buddhist India and note the different effects
of these strongly contrasted standards of goodness upon the races
accepting them as the measure and rule of rational conduct and duty.
The Buddhist ideal, as we have seen, is made up largely of the gentler,
contemplative, passive virtues, the virtues of the recluse and the
ascetic. Its issue in character is quietism. In opposition to this, the
Zoroastrian ideal inspires sturdy, virile, active virtues, the moral
qualities of the reformer, of the toiler and the fighter. The natural
effect of the ideal was to confirm in the Persians all the seemingly
original strong ethical qualities of the Iranic race.
[Sidenote: Persian veneration for
the truth]
We have seen that one of the chief requirements of the Zoroastrian
code was truthfulness; man must be veracious even as Ahura Mazda is
veracious. Various testimonies assure us that in respect to this virtue
there was in ancient Persia a commendable conformity of practice to
theory. The feeling for the beauty and nobility of truthfulness was
much more fully developed among the Persians than among any other
people of ancient or modern times. They were a truth-revering and a
truth-speaking people. Lying was the great crime. To lie, to deceive,
was to be a follower of Ahriman, the god of lies and deceit. Hence
lying was regarded as a species of treason against Ahura Mazda. “The
most disgraceful thing in the world,” affirms Herodotus, in his account
of the Persians, “they think, is to tell a lie; the next worse is to
owe a debt, because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to
tell lies.”[327] In his report of the Persian system of education
he says, “The boys are taught to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak
the truth.”[328] I was not wicked, nor a liar, is the substance and
purport of many a record of the ancient kings. Rawlinson adduces
this as evidence of their veneration for truthfulness. “The special
estimation in which truth was held among the Persians,” he says, “is
evidenced in a remarkable manner by the inscriptions of Darius, where
_lying_ is taken as the representative of all evil. It is the great
calamity of the usurpation of the pseudo-Smerdis, that ‘then the _lie_
became abounding in the land.’ ‘The Evil One (?) invented _lies_ that
they should deceive the state.’ Darius is favored by Ormazd, ‘because
he was not a heretic, nor a _liar_, nor a tyrant.’ His successors are
exhorted not to cherish, but to cast into utter perdition, ‘the man who
may be a _liar_, or who may be an evildoer.’ His great fear is lest
it may be thought that any part of the record which he has set up has
been ‘_falsely_ related,’ and he even abstains from relating certain
events of his reign ‘lest to him who may hereafter peruse the tablet,
the many deeds that have been done by him may seem to be ‘_falsely_
recorded.’”[329]
The Persian kings, shaming in this all other nations ancient and
modern, kept sacredly their pledged word;[330] only once were they ever
even charged with having broken a treaty with a foreign power.[331]
That truthfulness was a national virtue of the Persians is further
attested by the fact that Herodotus represents them as always relying
implicitly upon every tale told them by the lying Greeks whom they
had taken captive. It never seemed to occur to them that even an
enemy could be guilty of so awful a blasphemy as lying. It was this
trait which led to their undoing at Salamis by the unscrupulous and
mendacious Themistocles.[332]
[Sidenote: Influence of the ideal
upon Persian history]
That exaltation of character which we have remarked as springing
naturally from the moral dignity with which man was invested by being
made an associate of the good Ahura in his struggle with the wicked
Ahriman may be noticed especially in the aims and undertakings of
the Persian monarchs in the period before the moral decadence of the
Iranian civilization set in, and while the strength of the ethical
appeal of the Zoroastrian ideal was yet unimpaired. This appears in
all their records, which make the aim of their conquests to be the
overthrow of the powers of evil and disorder and the setting up of
a kingdom of righteousness in the world. The inscriptions of Darius
I read like the letters of the Puritan Cromwell. Indeed, just as it
was the masculine moral ideal of English Puritanism which helped to
make England great, and strong to play her part in the transactions
of modern times, so we may believe it was the strenuous moral ideal
of Zoroastrianism that helped to make Persia great, and strong to
play her great rôle in the affairs of the ancient world. In truth,
the ideal is still an unexpended force in history. It seems to have
given immortality to the people that it inspired; for it can hardly be
doubted that it is largely owing to their active practical morality
that the Parsees in India, the representatives to-day of the old
Zoroastrian faith, constitute such a dominant element in the Indian
communities of which they form a part.[333]