Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/873

Rh Z O S Z O S 823 heaven (according to later representations by Rashnu and Mithra). All thoughts, words, and deeds of each are entered in the book as separate items (ddthra, Y., 31, 14 ; Vend., 19, 27), all the evil works as debts (ishudd). Wicked actions cannot be undone, but in the heavenly account can be counterbalanced by a surplus of good works. It is only in this sense that an evil deed can be atoned for by a good one. Of a remission of sins the doctrine of Zoroaster knows nothing. After death the soul arrives at the cinvato pcrc- titsh or accountant s bridge over which lies the way to heaven. Here the statement of his life account is made out. If he has a balance of good works in his favour, he passes forthwith into paradise (Gar6 dein&na) and the blessed life. If his evil works outweigh his good he falls finally under the power of Satan, and the pains of hell are his portion for ever. Should the evil and the good be equally balanced, the soul passes into an intermediate stage of existence (the Hamestakdns of the Pahlavi books) and his final lot is not decided until the last judgment. This court of reckoning, the indicium particularc, is called oka. The course of inexorable law cannot be turned aside by any sacrifice or offering, nor yet even by the free grace of God. But man has been smitten with blindness and ignorance : he knows neither the eternal law nor the things which await him after death. He allows himself only too easily to be ensnared by the craft of the evil powers who seek to ruin his future existence. He worships and serves false gods, being unable to distinguish between truth and lies. Therefore it is that Ormuzd in his grace determined to open the eyes of mankind by sending a prophet to lead them by the right way, the way of salvation. According to later legend ( Vd., 2, 1), Ormuzd at first wished to entrust this task to Yima (Jemshid), the ideal of an Iranian king. But Yima, the secular man, felt himself unfitted for it and declined it. He con tented himself therefore with establishing in his paradise (vara) a heavenly kingdom in miniature, to serve at the same time as a pattern for the heavenly kingdom that was to come. Zoroaster at last, as being a spiritual man, was found fit for the mission. Zoroaster experienced within himself the inward call to seek the amelioration of mankind and their deliverance from everlasting ruin, and regarded this inward impulse, intensified as it was by means of dreams and visions, as being the call addressed to him by God Himself. Like Mohammed after him he often speaks of his con versations with God. He calls himself most frequently manthran (&quot;prophet&quot;), ratu (&quot;spiritual authority&quot;), and saoshyant (meaning &quot;he who will deliver,&quot; that is to say, when men come to be judged according to their deeds). The full contents of his dogmatic and ethical teaching we can not gather from the Gathas. He speaks for the most part only in general references of the divine commands and of good and evil works. Among the former those most inculcated are renunciation of Satan, adoration of Ormuzd, purity of soul and body, and care of the cow. We learn little otherwise regarding the practices con nected with his doctrines. A ceremonial worship is hardly men tioned. He speaks more in the character of prophet than in that of lawgiver. The contents of the Gathas are essentially eschatological. Revelations concerning the last things and the future lot, whether bliss or woe, of human souls, promises for true believers, threaten- ings for misbelievers, his firm confidence as to the future triumph of the good such are the themes continually dwelt on with endless variations. It was not without special reason, Zoroaster believed, that the calling of a prophet should have taken place precisely when it did. It was, he held, the final appeal of Ormuzd to mankind at large. Like John the Baptist and the Apostles of Jesus, Zoroaster also believed that the fulness of time was near, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Through the whole of the Gathas runs the pious hope that the end of the present world is not far off. He himself hopes along with his followers to live to see the decisive turn of things, the dawn of the new and better rcon. Ormuzd will summon together all his powers for a final decisive struggle and break the power of evil for ever ; by his help the faithful will achieve the victory over their detested enemies, the daeva worshippers, and render them powerless. Thereupon Ormuzd will hold a judicium nnivcrsale (vtd/iiti) upon all mankind and judge strictly according to justice, punish the wicked, and assign to the good the hoped-for reward. Satan will be cast, along with all those who have been delivered over to him to suffer the pains of hell, into the abyss, where he will thenceforward lie powerless. Forthwith begins the one undivided kingdom of God in heaven and on earth. This is railed, sometimes the good kingdom, sometimes simply the kingdom. Here the sun will for ever shine, and all the pious and faithful will live a happy life, that no evil power can disturb, in the fellowship of Ormuzd and his angels for ever. Zoroaster s teachings show him to have been a man of a highly speculative turn, faithful, however, with all his originality, to the Iranian national character. With zeal for the faith, and boldness and energy, he combined diplomatic skill in his dealings with his exalted protectors. His thinking is consecutive, self-restrained, practical, devoid on the whole of all that might be called fantastic and excessive. His form of expression is tangible and concrete. His system is constructed on a clearly conceived plan. History and Later Development of Zoroastrianism. For the great mass of the people Zoroaster s doctrine was too abstract and spirit ualistic. Popular faith instinctively and naturally turns to con crete plastic forms of godhead borrowed from surrounding nature, and thus it came to pass that a number of the old Aryan divinities, whom the new teaching had driven into the background, were again restored to their former rank, especially Mithra, the sun -god. Besides him, in the younger Avesta, Anahita (Anaitis), the goddess of the waters, Tishtrya (Sirius), and other heavenly bodies are in voked with special preference. The Gathas know nothing of a new belief which afterwards arose in the fravashi, or guardian angels of the faithful. Fravashi properly means &quot; confession of faith,&quot; and when personified comes to be regarded as a protecting spirit. Un believers have no fravashi. On the basis of the new teaching arose a widely spread priesthood (dthravan6) who systematized the doctrines, organized and carried on the worship, and laid down the minutely elaborated laws for the purifying and keeping pure of soul and body which are met with in the Vendidad. To the last-named belong in particular the numerous ablutions, bodily chastisements, love of truth, agriculture, protection of useful animals, as dogs and cattle, the destruction of noxious animals, and the prohibition either to burn or to bury the dead. In the worship the drink prepared from the haoma (Indian soma) plant had a prominent place. The last things and the end of the world are relegated to the close of a long period of time (3000 years after Zoroaster), when a new Saoshyant is to be born of the seed of Zoroaster, the dead are to come to life, and a new incor ruptible world to begin. The religion of Zoroaster, broadly speaking, never spread beyond the limits of Iran, although some isolated Turanian stems can be reckoned among those who profess it. From the East it doubtless passed in the first instance into Media and thence into Persia proper (eomp. PERSIA, vol. xviii. p. 564). In the Persians of Herodotus s time we still see the new proselytes who have indeed accepted the creed, but not yet without reserve all the religious usages which accompany it, and least of all those which run completely counter to sacred and immemorial traditions of their time-honoured customs. According to Herodotus (i. 140), they still refrained from exposing, at least from openly exposing, their dead to dogs and vultures, but continued to bury them. This was practised by the Magi only, that is, by the priesthood, in conformity with the priestly laws. The Persians, however, made so far a concession to their adopted religion that they enveloped their dead bodies in wax, so that the earth might not be defiled. After the fall of the Achremenidse (331 B.C.) Zoroastrianism lost greatly in power and dignity. It was subsequently rehabilitated, however, by the Sasanians, under whom it reached its highest prosperity. Protected by this dynasty, the priesthood developed into a completely organized state church, which was able to employ the power of the state in enforcing strict compliance with the re ligious law-book hitherto enjoined by their unaided efforts only. The formation of sects was at this period not infrequent (comp. MANICH^EISM). The Mohammedan invasion (636), with the terrible persecutions of the following centuries, w r as the death-blow of Zoroastrianism. In Persia itself only a few followers of Zoroaster are now found (in Kirman and Yazd). The PARSEES (q.r.) in and around Bombay hold by Zoroaster as their prophet and by the ancient religious usages, but their doctrine has reached the stage of a pure monotheism. Literature. See under ZEND-AVESTA; also Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, Berlin, 1803. (K. G.) ZOSIMUS, a Greek historical writer, held public office (Photius describes him as &quot;comes et exadvocatus fisci&quot;) at Constantinople some time in the -first half of the 5th century. His History, which is mainly a compilation from previous authors (Herennius Dexippus, Eunapius, Olympio- clorus), consists of six books : the first sketches very briefly the history of the early emperors from Augustus to Dio cletian (305) ; the second, third, and fourth deal more copiously with the period from the accession of Constantius and Galerius to the death of Theodosius ; the fifth and sixth cover the period between 395 and 410. The work is apparently unfinished. The style is characterized by Photius as concise, clear, and pure. The historian s object was to account for the decline of the Roman empire from the pagan point of view, and in this undertaking he has at various points treated the Christians with some unfairness. A Latin version of the History was published by Leunelavius in 1576 (Basel, fol.), and in 1581 H. Stephanus added the Greek text of the first two books to his edition of Herodian. All the six books were published by Sylburgius in vol. iii. of his Romanes Historic