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Rh rampant, it seems, and the priesthood was steeped in ignorance. The language of the Avesta had long ceased to be a living tongue, and the knowledge of the holy books written in that language was on its decline. The new language born at this period is Pahlavi, cognate with Parthava or Parthian, meaning heroic. It is an admixture of Aryan and Semitic. The Aryan element belongs to the Avesta, whereas the Semitic element is Aramaic, closely resembling Syriac. The Magi and the Athravans, the priests of Western and Eastern Iran, who were now united undertook the translations of the Avestan works and their explanations in Pahlavi. The explanations or commentaries are called āzainti in Avesta, and Zand in the later tongue.

Mithraism and Judaism were flourishing in Western Iran and Buddhism in Eastern Iran. A new religion of great potentiality entered Iran at this period. It was Christianity, whose propaganda spread in Iran during the Parthian period. We shall deal in brief in separate chapters with the spread of Mithraism outside Iran, and with Christianity, which was destined to grow into a great spiritual force that confronted Zoroastrianism from the middle of the second century to the middle of the seventh century, or the downfall of the last Zoroastrian empire. Five centuries of literary chaos thus elapsed before the dawn of the real Zoroastrian reformation dispelled the darkness and once more illumined the Mazdayasnian world with new light.