Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/126

Rh of evil faith seek to mislead others. They defy the good admonitions of the Deity and are not willing to hear the good counsel, the divine word of the Good Mind. Zarathushtra seeks means, therefore, to drive out their wickedness. He exhorts his audience to listen attentively to his inspired teachings, so that the teacher of evil may not thereafter injure them. The prophet comes as the lord between the parties of the righteous and the wicked and those whose good and evil deeds balance. He preaches to those who, being led astray by the evil advice of Druj, smite the world of righteousness. The wicked are far from the good-will of Ahura Mazda; their sinful deeds make them companions of Evil Mind. They strive to estrange the righteous from the Best Mind, and from the best deeds. They strive to reduce all others to their own class. They bring distress and death to the house, village, town, and country, through their wicked spells. He who harasses the prophet is the child of Druj.

Druj's followers are to be requited with evil in this world. In his crusade against the Kingdom of Wickedness, Zoroaster is unsparing and even unforgiving. We do not see, in the words handed down from his lips, the gentler side of virtue of returning good for evil. Here we have the ethics of retaliation. Once the antithesis between the Kingdom of Righteousness and Wickedness is sharply defined, the latter is to be relentlessly opposed. The two parties are on the war-path, and strict discipline demands that the righteous man will on no account wink at or palliate wickedness, and let the evildoer go free without retribution. Wrong is to be handled as wrong, and the man who does wrong is to be met with his own weapons. Evil is to be requited by evil and not by goodness. Indifference and leniency threaten only to further the domain of Wickedness. Consequently evil is to be relentlessly put down.

Zarathushtra is the friend of the righteous, but a veritable foe to the wicked. The wicked lords of the land vehemently oppose his work; it is they who hinder the righteous in the pursuit of goodness. He who hurls these miscreants down from