Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/594

562 BOOK II. Its influence on the Jews.

fessedly left to men the power of choosing whom they should obey, " Ahura-mazda is holy, true, to be honoured through truth, through holy deeds." " You cannot serve him and his enemy." *' In the beginning there was a pair of twins, two spirits, each of a peculiar activity. These are the Good and the Base in thought, word, and deed. Choose one of these two spirits. Be good, not base." But practically Ahriman took continually a stronger hold on the popular imagination, and the full effects of this process were to be realized elsewhere. The religion of Zoroaster has been regarded as a reform ; in M. Breal's judgment, it was rather a return to a classifi- cation which the Hindu had abandoned or had never cared to adopt. " While Brahmanism kept to the old belief only in the letter, Mazdeism preserved its spirit The Parsee, who sees the universe divided between two forces, ever}'where present and each in turn victorious until the final victory of Ormuzd, is nearer to the mythical representations of the first age than the Hindu, who, looking on everything as an illusion of the senses, ^^Taps up the universe and his own personality in the existence of one single Being." ^

With this dualism the Jews were brought into contact during the captivity at Babylon, That the Hebrew prophets had reiterated their belief in one God with the most profound conviction, is not to be questioned ; but as little can it be doubted that as a people the Jews had exhibited little impulse towards Monotheism, and that from this time we discern a readiness to adopt the Zoroastrian demon- ology. Thus far Satan had appeared, as in the book of Job, among the ministers of God; but in later books we have a closer approxi- mation to the Iranian creed. In the words of M. Bre'al, " Satan assumes, in Zacharias and in the first book of Chronicles, the character of Alrriman, and appears as the author of evil. Still later he becomes the prince of the devils, the source of wicked thoughts, the enemy of the word of God. He tempts the Son of God ; he enters into Judas for his ruin. The Apocalypse exhibits Satan with the physical attributes of Ahriman : he is called the dragon, the old serpent, who fights against God and his angels. The Vedic myth, transformed and exaggerated in the Iranian books, finds its way through this channel into Christianity." The idea thus introduced was that of the struggle between Satan and Michael which ended in the overthrow of the former, and the casting forth of all his hosts out of heaven ; but it coincided too nearly with a myth spread in countries held by all the Ar}'an nations to avoid further modification.

^ Hercules et Cacus, 1 29. The same view of the origin of the Dualistic theo- logy is taken by M. Maury, Croyanccs, &c., 97.