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SATAN A PRODUCT OF EVERY LAND.

CHAPTER II.

MY HISTORICAL GENESIS.

If the learned author of Paradise Lost may be believed, I possess the utmost facility of passing through space and time. This ideal power may be of use to me now, when I proceed to describe my historical genesis. Come with me then, gentle companion, and stand by my side there on the Hindu Kush, at the western extremity of the Himalayan mountains. Here, as from a probable cradle of the human race, we can cast our eyes to the East, the West, the South and the North, and trace the main lines that the four great streams of civilization have pursued in the passage of human beings over the surface of Asia and Europe. I confine myself to this hemisphere, because the western half of the globe is still but imperfectly explored in regard to the sources of its populations. The defect is a matter of small consequence, because enough is known of its aborigines to assure us that they belonged to the genus homo. Now man is essentially everywhere the same. More or less of civilization does not alter the fundamental qualities of his being. Of these, no one is more completely universal than worship. Wherever he is, under whatever skies, on whatever soil, on sea as well as land, man is a worshiper. This, which is true locally, is alike true in regard to successive ages. The half savage inhabitant of Egyptian Thebes bent before his gods of stone. The philosopher who speculates on the banks of the Thames bows his heart in homage to the Creator of the universe. Even those who deny God with their lips own him in the voiceless movements of their souls.

Co-extensive with the recognition of God is the recognition of me. This position is so true, that as yet the exceptions present themselves solely in the most cultivated individuals of the most cultivated nations. History, then, in bearing its

SATAN FOLLOWS THE LINE OF CIVILIZATION.

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testimony to God, has a testimony to bear to Satan. The dualism which Logic and Experience furnish, History attests.

But how within my contracted limits-how can I exhibit the fact so as to gain credence for it? An easy and a ready way presents itself. It is one of the great and most beneficent results of modern science to shew that, at least in regard to this hemisphere, all civilization has come from the East.. A question may be raised as to the anteriority of India or Egypt; but all authorities agree that the great stream of culture flows not from the West to the East, but from the East to the West. It is indeed true that its direction is now altered. At present, Europe repays to Asia the debt it spent ages in contracting. But then the payment is nothing else than interest on the capital it began to borrow in almost the earliest days of civilization.

This great stream of culture had another aspect. It was identical with the stream of population. Greek, Teuton, English, Kelt, Roman, French, Irish and Highland Scotall are descendants of the natives of the Indus and the Ganges. What is true of races is true of languages. It is also true of objects of worship. The divinities that are at this moment worshiped in Calcutta, find their analogues in the remotest antiquity in the same Eastern land and in every part of civilized Europe at present. No less is it true that over this extent of space and time I am found everywhere.

It is equally certain that, while always and in all places the same, I vary as each successive age varies in regard to general culture. Fiercest in the lowest tribes, I by degrees become mild as mental elevation and moral refinement more or less prevail. If the frightful task assigned to me by Christian divines seems to contradict the assertion, the contradiction is itself contradicted by the general tendency of the present day, in which the spread of an ethical Christianity— the true religion of Christ-is gradually effacing my image from the more cultivated human minds, as water continually dropping wears away the hardest rock.

Together with the falsity of a personal devil, the bulk of the huge mass of other superstitions which once flooded the Church, and still defile and deform the greater portion of it, went down out of Eastern lands more or less remote in time and place, to settle in the West until "the times of Reformation."

No wonder, then, that, under some name or another, I am found from where we stand in every known spot on all sides around us. On other grounds than those I have taken up, the statement might be extended to the entire surface of the earth.

If I exist wherever man exists, what am I but man's shadow? Declare that I am a person, and add, in obedience to the orthodoxy of our subject, that at the same moment I tempt men in every spot on the habitable globe, and then what else do you but make me a co-partner with the Almighty in his dominion over the earth? And if God has such a rival, how is he the Almighty? His sway is shared by me, who lust for evil as much as he desires good. Yet did not those divine lips declare, that a "kingdom divided against itself cannot stand"? (Matt. xii. 25). What, then, do I but imperil the throne of the Creator of the universe? To conclusions so false and painful does belief in my proper personality inevitably lead.

On one of the minor streams which combine to make up the great river of culture of which I have spoken, I now, Theophilus, desire to fix your eye. The country which, stretching out immediately before us, extends from the Black Sea on the right hand, the Caspian on the left, and the Persian Gulf on the south-west, shews you the district where in ancient days I flourished more than anywhere else. In general terms it may be called Persia. There I received what may be called my university training. The head master of the school bore the name of Zoroaster or Zerdusht. As Greeks bore the classic culture from Constantinople to Faris and Oxford, so did Zoroaster transmit a modified Brahmanism to

SATAN SPECIALLY A PRODUCT OF ZOROASTERISM.

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the principal cities of Irania. In both cases I formed part of the learned burden. Indeed, the burden differed mainly in form, only that the classic culture in its original purity had in it, from the nature of the soil where it grew up, but a small infusion of demonology, whereas that element superabounded in Zoroasterism.* The age of Zoroaster, after being much debated, remains fluctuating between 6000 and 600 years before the birth of Christ. The latter appears to be nearer the truth than the former. His doctrines first became known in Europe by a translation into French of the Zend Avesta. When, in the sixth century before Christ, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus, the higher orders of the country held the doctrines of Zoroaster (the Gold-star). The captive Jews were taken by its monotheistic principles and what to them were spiritual tendencies. Accordingly they appropriated much of its substance. The appropriation was made fuller during the two centuries (536-332 A. C.) in which the Persian empire bore sway in Palestine. The following is an outline of Zoroasterism.‡

The Supreme Being, Zervané Akerené, or unbounded time, an abyss in which "all our thoughts are drowned," is the source of all that exists. Thence came the primitive light, that is the primitive fire and primitive water; and from their mixture by Honover, the creative Word, sprang first Ahura Mazda, commonly known as Ormuzd, the good God, the spirit of light, the root of all that is good in the world, the source of all perfections, the resplendent image of the infinite, all whose attributes he possesses. In modern phrase, Zervané Akerené is God unrevealed, and Ahura Mazda God revealed: and then Enzhrehé Meenieosh, or Ahriman, who, good in his origin, at

* Kleuker Zendavesta; Heeren Ideen; Rhode Die Heilige Sage der alten Perser.

Zendavesta Ouvrage de Zoroastre, contenant les Idees Théologiques Physiques, et Morales de ce Legislateur, &c. Traduit par M. Anquetil du Perron. Paris, 1771.

Theologie Biblique, par Eugène Haag, p. 387. Paris, 1870.

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SATAN AND AHRIMAN THE SAME.

the end of 3000 years became bad through his jealousy of Ormuzd, so that his luminous essence grew obscure and changed into darkness. Thus he became the Malignant Spirit, "the prince of darkness," the source of all evil-of impure thoughts, of violent passions, of sin, and of death-in a word, myself, as popularly understood. His symbol is the serpent, as that of Ormuzd is sacred fire and the sun. Then opened the second period, that too of 3000 years, during which Ormuzd reigned alone, pursuing his work of creation unopposed, and reproducing in a visible form the world of ideas (Fervers), the prototypes of all creatures, the principles of life and movement in heaven and earth, the pure and immediate imprints of the creative thought, of the Word Honover. Ormuzd first created the world of spirits, the highest position in which is held by Emesha Sepeanta, or the Amshaspands, hypostases of the divine attributes, in number six, presided over by Ormuzd himself, thus making seven, one of the sacred numbers of the Bible, reproduced in our seven days and the Hebrew seven (sabbath) day worship. Their substance is the light. They are accounted the genii or guardian angels of the seven planets as known to the ancients. After the Amshaspands, Ormuzd created the Izeds, in number twenty-eight (four sevens or a lunation: observe, my dear pupil, the traces of the primæval star-worship). These Izeds (a word denoting a divinity) are secondary gods, who (like the Dii minores of Latium) preside over the elements-mountains, rivers, plants, &c., and guard inanimate nature from the attacks of the Dews, or fallen angels, like the Titans of Greek mythology. Among these, Mithra (the sun-god) holds the first position. As opponents to these good genii, Ahriman created the Dews (Deus, Latin for God, whence deity, divine, and perhaps the English devil), whose business it is to ruin Ormuzd's creation and to extend the kingdom of darkness. Special fury was manifested by the jealous Ahriman when Ormuzd created the world of bodies. Not satisfied with throwing Ormuzd's work into confusion (as learned theologians say I did in regard to