Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/487

 religion, a conquering and encroaching faith. The Persian Empire threatened to destroy the independence of Greece. It held the Jews in actual subjection, and its religious views profoundly influenced the development of theirs. Through the Jews, its ideas have penetrated the Christian world, and leavened Europe. It once possessed an extensive and remarkable sacred literature, but a few scattered fragments of which have descended to us. These fragments, recovered and first translated by Anquetil du Perron, have been but imperfectly elucidated as yet by European scholars; and there can be no doubt that much more light remains to be cast upon them by philology as it progresses. Such as they are, however, I shall make use of the translations already before us to give my readers an imperfect, account of the character of the Parsee Scriptures.

These compositions are the productions of several centuries and are widely separated from one another in the character of their thought, and in the objects of worship proposed to the faithful follower of Zarathustra. The oldest among them, which may belong to the time of the prophet himself, are considered by Haug to be as ancient as 1200, while the youngest were very likely as recent as 500.

Haug considers the Avesta to be the most ancient text, while the Zend was a kind of commentary upon this already sacred book.

Taking the several portions of the Zend-Avesta in their chronological order (as far as this can be ascertained), we shall begin with the five Gâthâs, which are pronounced by their translator to be "by far the oldest, weightiest, and most important pieces of the Zend-Avesta" (F. G., xiii). Some portions of these venerable hymns are even attributed by him to Zarathus-*

Zend scholars—are entirely at variance as to the proper method of translating these ancient documents; and pending the settlement of this question, any interpretation proposed must be regarded by the uninstructed reader as uncertain. I cannot refrain from adding an expression of regret that Dr. Haug, to whose labors in the interpretation of these obscure fragments of antiquity we owe so much, should have so far forgotten himself as to fall foul of Dr Spiegel in a tone wholly unbecoming a scholar and inappropriate to the subject. It is not by this kind of learned Billingsgate that the superiority of his translation to that of his rival, as he evidently considers him, or his fellow-laborer as I should prefer to call him, can be established.]
 * [Footnote: "Le Yacna." Unfortunately Dr. Haug and Dr. Spiegel—both very eminent