Page:The Descent of Bolshevism.djvu/17



This is the Bolshevism we meet with, as early as the fifth century, in Persia. Its exponent and leader, a man named Mazdak, was a priest in Neishapur before he became a prophet. King Kobad, the little father of the great Nushirvan, was then on the throne; and Christianity, which had penetrated Persia, was still convulsed by the controversies of the single and the double nature of Christ and the persecutions that generally followed or accompanied them.

The theology of the Fathers and the philosophy of St. Paul carried the dissensions through Armenia to Persia, thus weakening the newly acquired faith, which had but a slight hold upon the people. It certainly had little or no influence upon King Kobad. As for Mazdak, he must