be epitomized under the following heads: 1st. The existence of one God,
from Whom all things proceed, and to Whom all must return. To him they
constantly apply these expressions--The Universal and Eternal Essence;
that which has ever been and will ever continue; that which vivifies and
pervades all things; He who is everywhere present, and causes the
celestial bodies to revolve in the course He has prescribed to them. 2d.
A tripartite division of the Good Principle, for the purposes of
Creation, Preservation, and Renovation by change and death. 3d. The
necessary existence of an Evil Principle, occupied in counteracting the
benevolent purposes of the first, in their execution by the Devata or
Subordinate Genii, to whom is entrusted the control over the various
operations of nature.
And this was part of their doctrine: "One great and incomprehensible
Being has alone existed from all Eternity. Everything we behold and we
ourselves are portions of Him. The soul, mind or intellect, of gods and
men, and of all sentient creatures, are detached portions of the
Universal Soul, to which at stated periods they are destined to return.
But the mind of finite beings is impressed by one uninterrupted series
of illusions, which they consider as real, until again united to the
great fountain of truth. Of these illusions, the first and most
essential is individuality. By its influence, when detached from its
source, the soul becomes ignorant of its own nature, origin, and
destiny. It considers itself as a separate existence, and no longer a
spark of the Divinity, a link of one immeasurable chain, an infinitely
small but indispensable portion of one great whole."
Their love of imagery caused them to personify what they conceived to be
some of the attributes of God, perhaps in order to present things in a
way better adapted to the comprehensions of the vulgar, than the
abstruse idea of an indescribable, invisible God; and hence the
invention of a Brahma, a Vishnu, and a Siva or Iswara. These were
represented under various forms; but no emblem or visible sign of Brihm
or Brehm, the Omnipotent, is to be found. They considered the great
mystery of the existence of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, as beyond
human comprehension. Every creature endowed with the faculty of
thinking, they held, must be conscious of the existence of a God, a
first cause; but the attempt to explain the nature of that Being, or in
any way to assimilate it with our own, they considered not only a proof
of folly, but of extreme impiety.
The following extracts from their books will serve to show what were the
real tenets of their creed:
"By one Supreme Ruler is this Universe pervaded; even every world in the
whole circle of nature.... There is one Supreme Spirit, which nothing
can shake, more swift than the thought of man. That Supreme Spirit moves
at pleasure, but in itself is immovable; it is distant from us, yet near
us; it pervades this whole system of worlds; yet it is infinitely beyond
it. That man who considers all beings as existing even in the Supreme
Spirit, and the Supreme Spirit as pervading all beings, henceforth views
no creature with contempt.... All spiritual beings are the same in kind
with the Supreme Spirit.... The pure enlightened soul assumes a luminous
form, with no gross body, with no perforation, with no veins or tendons,
unblemished, untainted by sin; itself being a ray from the Infinite
Spirit, which knows the Past and the Future, which pervades all, which
existed with no cause but itself, which created all things as they are,
in ages most remote. That all-pervading Spirit which gives light to the
visible Sun, even the same in _kind_ am I, though infinitely distant in
_degree_. Let my soul return to the immortal Spirit of God, and then let
my body, which ends in ashes, return to dust! O Spirit, who pervadest
fire, lead us in a straight path to the riches of beatitude. Thou, O
God, possessest all the treasures of knowledge! Remove each foul taint
from our souls!
"From what root springs mortal man, when felled by the hand of death?
Who can make him spring again to birth? God, who is perfect wisdom,
perfect happiness. He is the final refuge of the man who has liberally
bestowed his wealth, who has been firm in virtue, who knows and adores
that Great One.... Let us adore the supremacy of that Divine Sun, the
Godhead who illuminates all, who re-creates all, from whom all proceed,
to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings
aright, in our progress toward his holy seat.... What the Sun and Light
are to this visible world, such is truth to the intellectual and visible
Universe.... Our souls acquire certain knowledge, by meditating on the
light of Truth, which emanates from the Being of Beings.... That Being,
without eyes sees, without ears hears all; he knows whatever can be
known, but there is none who knows him; him the wise call the Great,
Supreme, Pervading Spirit.... Perfect Truth, Perfect Happiness, without
equal, immortal; absolute unity, whom neither speech can describe, nor
mind comprehend: all-pervading, all-transcending, delighted with his own
boundless intelligence, nor limited by space or time; without feet,
running swiftly; without hands, grasping all worlds; without eyes,
all-surveying; without ears, all-hearing; without an intelligent guide,
understanding all; without cause, the first of all causes; all-ruling,
all-powerful, the Creator, Preserver, Transformer of all things: such is
the Great One; this the Vedas declare.
"May that soul of mine, which mounts aloft in my waking hours as an
ethereal spark, and which, even in my slumber, has a like ascent,
soaring to a great distance, as an emanation from the Light of Lights,
be united by devout meditation with the Spirit supremely blest, and
supremely intelligent!.... May that soul of mine, which was itself the
primeval oblation placed within all creatures.... which is a ray of
perfect wisdom, which is the inextinguishable light fixed within created
bodies, without which no good act is performed.... in which as an
immortal essence may be comprised whatever has passed, is present, or
will be hereafter.... be united by devout meditation with the Spirit
supremely blest and supremely intelligent!
"The Being of Beings is the Only God, eternal and everywhere present,
Who comprises everything. There is no God but He.... The Supreme Being
is invisible, incomprehensible, immovable, without figure or shape. No
one has ever seen Him; time never comprised Him; His essence pervades
everything; all was derived from Him.
"The duty of a good man, even in the moment of his destruction, consists
not only in forgiving, but even in a desire of benefiting his destroyer;
as the sandal-tree, in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on
the axe which fells it."
The Vedanta and Nyaya philosophers acknowledge a Supreme Eternal Being,
and the immortality of the soul: though, like the Greeks, they differ in
their ideas of those subjects. They speak of the Supreme Being as an
eternal essence that pervades space, and gives life or existence. Of
that universal and eternal pervading spirit, the Vedanti suppose four
modifications; but as these do not change its nature, and as it would be
erroneous to ascribe to each of them a distinct essence, so it is
equally erroneous, they say, to imagine that the various modifications
by which the All-pervading Being exists, or displays His power, are
individual existences. Creation is not considered as the instant
production of things, but only as the manifestation of that which exists
eternally in the one Universal Being. The Nyaya philosophers believe
that spirit and matter are eternal; but they do not suppose that the
world in its present form has existed from eternity, but only the
primary matter from which it sprang when operated on by the almighty
Word of God, the Intelligent Cause and Supreme Being, Who produced the
combinations or aggregations which compose the material Universe. Though
they believe that soul is an emanation from the Supreme Being, they
distinguish it from that Being, in its individual existence. Truth and
Intelligence are the eternal attributes of God, not, they say, of the
individual soul, which is susceptible both of knowledge and ignorance,
of pleasure and pain; and therefore God and it are distinct. Even when
it returns to the Eternal, and attains supreme bliss, it undoubtedly
does not cease. Though _united_ to the Supreme Being, it is not
_absorbed_ in it, but still retains the abstract nature of definite or
visible existence.
"The dissolution of the world," they say, "consists in the destruction
of the visible forms and qualities of things; but their material essence
remains, and from it new worlds are formed by the creative energy of
God; and thus the Universe is dissolved and renewed in endless
succession."
The Jainas, a sect at Mysore and elsewhere, say that the ancient
religion of India and of the whole world consisted in the belief in one
God, a pure Spirit, indivisible, omniscient and all-powerful; that God,
having given to all things their appointed order and course of action,
and to man a sufficient portion of reason, or understanding, to guide
him in his conduct, leaves him to the operation of free will, without
the entire exercise of which he could not be held answerable for his
conduct.
Menou, the Hindū lawgiver, adored, not the visible, material Sun, but
"that divine and incomparably greater light," to use the words of the
most venerable text in the Indian Scripture, "which illumines all,
delights all, from which all proceed, to which all must return, and
which alone can irradiate our intellects." He thus commences his
Institutes:
"Be it heard!
"This Universe existed only in the first divine idea yet unexpanded, as
if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by
reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in
sleep:
"Then the Sole Self-existing Power, Himself undiscovered, but making
this world discernible, with five elements, and other principles of
nature, appeared with undiminished glory, _expanding His idea_, or
dispelling the gloom.
"He Whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the eternal
organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from Eternity, even He, the
soul of all beings, Whom no being can comprehend, shone forth.
"He, having willed to produce various beings from His own divine
Substance, first with a thought created the waters ... From that which
is [precisely the Hebrew יהוה], the first cause, not the object of
sense, existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception,
without beginning or end" [the A and Ω, or the I A Ω], "was
produced the divine male famed in all worlds under the appellation of
Brahma."
Then recapitulating the different things created by Brahma, he adds:
"He," meaning Brahma [the Λογος, the WORD], "whose powers are
incomprehensible, having thus created this Universe, was again absorbed
in the Supreme Spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of
repose."
The _Antareya A'ran'ya_, one of the Vedas, gives this primitive idea of
the creation: "In the beginning, the Universe was but a Soul: nothing
else, active or inactive, existed. Then HE had this thought, _I will
create worlds_; and thus HE created these different worlds; air, the
light, mortal beings, and the waters.
"HE had this thought: _Behold the worlds; I will create guardians for
the worlds._ So HE took of the water and fashioned a being clothed with
the human form. He looked upon him, and of that being so contemplated,
the mouth opened like an egg, and speech came forth, and from the speech
fire. The nostrils opened, and through them went the breath of
respiration, and by it the air was propagated. The eyes opened; from
then came a luminous ray, and from it was produced the sun. The ears
dilated; from them came hearing, and from hearing space:" ... and, after
the body of man, with the senses, was formed;--"HE, the Universal Soul,
thus reflected: _How can this body exist without Me?_ He examined
through what extremity He could penetrate it. He said to Himself: If,
_without Me, the World is articulated, breath exhales, and sight sees;
if hearing hears, the skin feels, and the mind reflects, deglutition
swallows, and the generative organ fulfills its functions, what then am
I?_ And separating the suture of the cranium, He penetrated into man."
Behold the great fundamental primitive truths! God, an infinite Eternal
Soul or Spirit. Matter, not eternal nor self-existent, but
created--created by a thought of God. After matter, and worlds, then
man, by a like thought: and finally, after endowing him with the senses
and a thinking mind, a portion, a spark, of God Himself penetrates the
man, and becomes a living spirit within him.
The Vedas thus detail the creation of the world:
"In the beginning there was a single God, existing of Himself; Who,
after having passed an eternity absorbed in the contemplation of His own
being, desired to manifest His perfections outwardly of Himself; and
created the matter of the world. The four elements being thus produced,
but still mingled in confusion, He breathed upon the waters, which
swelled up into an immense ball in the shape of an egg, and, developing
themselves, became the vault and orb of Heaven which encircles the
earth. Having made the earth and the bodies of animal beings, this God,
the essence of movement, gave to them, to animate them, a portion of His
own being. Thus, the soul of everything that breathes being a fraction
of the universal soul, none perishes; but each soul merely changes its
mould and form, by passing successively into different bodies. Of all
forms, that which most pleases the Divine Being is Man, as nearest
approaching His own perfections. When a man, absolutely disengaging
himself from his senses, absorbs himself in self-contemplation, he comes
to discern the Divinity, and becomes part of Him."
The Ancient Persians in many respects resembled the Hindūs,--in their
language, their poetry, and their poetic legends. Their conquests
brought them in contact with China; and they subdued Egypt and Judea.
Their views of God and religion more resembled those of the Hebrews than
those of any other nation; and indeed the latter people borrowed from
them some prominent doctrines, that we are in the habit of regarding as
an essential part of the original Hebrew creed.
Of the King of Heaven and Father of Eternal Light, of the pure World of
LIGHT, of the Eternal WORD by which all things were created, of the
Seven Mighty Spirits that stand next to the Throne of Light and
Omnipotence, and of the glory of those Heavenly Hosts that encompass
that Throne, of the Origin of Evil, and the Prince of Darkness, Monarch
of the rebellious spirits, enemies of all good, they entertained tenets
very similar to those of the Hebrews. Toward Egyptian idolatry they felt
the strongest abhorrence, and under Cambyses pursued a regular plan for
its utter extirpation. Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, destroyed the
Temples and erected fire-chapels along the whole course of his march.
Their religion was eminently spiritual, and the earthly fire and earthly
sacrifice were but the signs and emblems of another devotion and a
higher power.
Thus the fundamental doctrine of the ancient religion of India and
Persia was at first nothing more than a simple veneration of nature, its
pure elements and its primary energies, the sacred fire, and above all,
Light,--the air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and
brighter air of Heaven, the breath that animates and pervades the breath
of mortal life. This pure and simple veneration of nature is, perhaps
the most ancient, and was by far the most generally prevalent in the
primitive and patriarchal world. It was not originally a deification of
nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God. Those pure elements and
primitive essences of created nature offered to the first men, still in
a close communication with the Deity, not a likeness of resemblance,
nor a mere fanciful image or a poetical figure, but a natural and true
symbol of Divine power. Everywhere in the Hebrew writings the pure light
or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-prevading and
all-consuming power and omnipresence of the Divinity. His breath was the
source of life; and the faint whisper of the breeze announced to the
prophet His immediate presence.
"All things are the progeny of one fire. The Father perfected all
things, and delivered them over to the Second Mind, whom all nations of
men call the First. Natural works co-exist with the intellectual light
of the Father; for it is the Soul which adorns the great Heaven, and
which adorns it after the Father. The Soul, being a bright fire, by the
power of the Father, remains immortal, and is mistress of life, and
fills up the recesses of the world. For the fire which is first beyond,
did not shut up his power in matter by works, but by mind, for the
framer of the fiery world is the mind of mind, who first sprang from
mind, clothing fire with fire. Father-begotten Light! for He alone,
having from the Father's power received the essence of intellect, is
enabled to understand the mind of the Father; and to instill into all
sources and principles the capacity of understanding, and of ever
continuing in ceaseless revolving motion." Such was the language of
Zoroaster, embodying the old Persian ideas.
And the same ancient sage thus spoke of the Sun and Stars: The Father
made the whole Universe of fire and water and earth, and all-nourishing
ether. He fixed a great multitude of moveless stars, that stand still
forever, not by compulsion and unwillingly, but without desire to
wander, fire acting upon fire. He congregated the seven firmaments of
the world, and so surrounded the earth with the convexity of the
Heavens; and therein set seven living existences, arranging their
apparent disorder in regular orbits, six of them planets, and the Sun,
placed in the centre, the seventh;--in that centre from which all lines,
diverging which way soever, are equal; and the swift sun himself,
revolving around a principal centre, and ever striving to reach the
central and all-pervading light, bearing with him the bright Moon.
And yet Zoroaster added: "Measure not the journeyings of the Sun, nor
attempt to reduce them to rule; for he is carried by the eternal will of
the Father, not for your sake. Do not endeavor to understand the
impetuous course of the Moon; for she runs evermore under the impulse
of necessity; and the progression of the Stars was not generated to
serve any purpose of yours."
Ormuzd says to Zoroaster, in the Boundehesch: "I am he who holds the
Star-Spangled Heaven in ethereal space; who makes this sphere, which
once was buried in darkness, a flood of light. Through me the Earth
became a world firm and lasting--the earth on which walks the Lord of
the world. I am he who makes the light of Sun, Moon, and Stars pierce
the clouds. I make the corn seed, which perishing in the ground sprouts
anew.... I created man, whose eye is light, whose life is the breath of
his nostrils. I placed within him life's unextinguishable power."
Ormuzd or Ahura-Mazda himself represented the primal light, distinct
from the heavenly bodies, yet necessary to their existence, and the
source of their splendor. The Amschaspands (Ameschaspenta, "immortal
Holy Ones"), each presided over a special department of nature. Earth
and Heaven, fire and water, the Sun and Moon, the rivers, trees, and
mountains, even the artificial divisions of the day and year were
addressed in prayer as tenanted by Divine beings, each separately ruling
within his several sphere. Fire, in particular, that "most energetic of
immortal powers," the visible representative of the primal light, was
invoked as "Son of Ormuzd." The Sun, the Archimagus, that noblest and
most powerful agent of divine power, who "steps forth as a Conqueror
from the top of the terrible Alborj to rule over the world which he
enlightens from the throne of Ormuzd," was worshipped among other
symbols by the name of MITHRAS, a beneficent and friendly genius, who,
in the hymn addressed to him in the Zend-Avesta, bears the names given
him by the Greeks, as the "Invincible" and the "Mediator"; the former,
because in his daily strife with darkness he is the most active
confederate of Ormuzd; the latter, as being the medium through which
Heaven's choicest blessings are communicated to men. He is called "the
eye of Ormuzd, the effulgent Hero, pursuing his course triumphantly,
fertilizer of deserts, most exalted of the Izeds or Yezatas, the
never-sleeping, the protector of the land." "When the dragon foe
devastates my provinces," says Ormuzd, "and afflicts them with famine,
then is he struck down by the strong arm of Mithras, together with the
Devs of Mazanderan. With his lance and his immortal club, the Sleepless
Chief hurls down the Devs into the dust, when as Mediator he interposes
to guard the City from evil."
Ahriman was by some Parsee sects considered older than Ormuzd, as
darkness is older than light; he is imagined to have been unknown as a
Malevolent Being in the early ages of the world, and the fall of man is
attributed in the Boundehesch to an apostate worship of him, from which
men were converted by a succession of prophets terminating with
Zoroaster.
Mithras is not only light, but intelligence; that luminary which, though
born in obscurity, will not only dispel darkness but conquer death. The
warfare through which this consummation is to be reached, is mainly
carried on through the instrumentality of the "Word," that "ever-living
emanation of the Deity, by virtue of which the world exists," and of
which the revealed formulas incessently repeated in the liturgies of the
Magi are but the expression. "What shall I do," cried Zoroaster, "O
Ormuzd, steeped in brightness, in order to battle with Daroodj-Ahriman,
father of the Evil Law; how shall I make men pure and holy?" Ormuzd
answered and said: "Invoke, O Zoroaster, the pure law of the Servants of
Ormuzd; invoke the Amschaspands who shed abundance throughout the seven
Keshwars; invoke the Heaven, Zeruana-Akarana, the birds travailing on
high, the swift wind, the Earth; invoke my Spirit, me who am
Ahura-Mazda, the purest, strongest, wisest, best of beings; me who have
the most majestic body, who through purity am Supreme, whose Soul is the
Excellent Word; and ye, all people, invoke me as I have commanded
Zoroaster."
Ahura-Mazda himself is the living WORD; he is called "First-born of all
things, express image of the Eternal, very light of very light, the
Creator, who by power of the Word which he never ceases to pronounce,
made in 365 days the Heaven and the Earth." The Word is said in the
Yashna to have existed before all, and to be itself a Yazata, a
personified object of prayer. It was revealed in Serosch, in Homa, and
again, under Gushtasp, was manifested in Zoroaster.
Between life and death, between sunshine and shade, Mithras is the
present exemplification of the Primal Unity from which all things arose,
and into which, through his mediation, all contrarieties will ultimately
be absorbed. His annual sacrifice is the passover of the Magi, a
symbolical atonement or pledge of moral and physical regeneration. He
created the world in the beginning; and as at the close of each
successive year he sets free the current of life to invigorate a fresh
circle of being, so in the end of all things he will bring the weary
sum of ages as a hecatomb before God, releasing by a final sacrifice the
Soul of Nature from her perishable frame, to commence a brighter and
purer existence.