Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 4.djvu/50

xliv left. Therefore we must absolutely have an upright and honest man to revise the Religion .' Tansar himself con- fesses that Ardashir does not pretend to re-establish the old order in its entirety, nor even to keep it free from the admixture of new elements. He takes liberties with it, and, whereas he comes forward to correct the new order ( n) by the light of the older one, he does not waive the right of correcting what may be wrong in the old law. Therefore, by his own confession, his restoration is an adaptation. How little he was embarrassed in his work by the authority of authentic written texts, Tansar lets us easily guess, 'When the Shâhinshâh wants to suppress any iniquity of the Ancients, which does not suit the necessities of the present, they say: "This is the old custom, it is the rule of the Ancients." Iniquity, past or present, is a thing to be reproved, whether it comes from the Ancients or from the Moderns. But the Shâhinshâh has power over the Religion, and God is his ally ; and in this destroying and changing of the order of tyranny, I see him better armed and adorned with more virtues than the Ancients. No king attempted what he did. The Religion being lost and history forgotten, what man could judge him? Besides, even in the times when men had perfect knowledge of their religion and were closely attached to it, they felt the need of a powerful and wise king in times of doubt; for if the Religion is not enlightened by reason, it has no steadiness .'

It is no wonder therefore that Zoroastrians of the time may have considered Ardashîr a sacrilegious heretic. One of his acts that created the greatest indignation was that he had the sacred fires of the t- f extinguished: a crime that would have cost any other man his life: 'no man before him,' exclaimed king Gasnasf, 'had ventured on such a sacrilege.' Tansar threw back the charge of sacrilege on the shoulders of the  t- f: they