The Historians' History of the World 02

These are the principal characteristics of the kingdom sketched by Zoroaster; the picture of a despotic government on the principles of the customs of the East. To this he added precepts calculated to advance the moral improvement of his people; nor did it escape his observation, that on the habits of the nation, and in particular on their domestic virtues, must be founded its public constitution. Hence his laws for the furtherance of marriage, his praises of fruitfulness in women, and his condemnation of the unnatural vices which abounded in the countries where he dwelt. He did not, however, venture to proclaim himself a patron of monogamy, either because he himself had not been convinced of its expediency, or because his countrymen were too firmly attached to their existing practices.

The conservation of his ordinances was entrusted to the priestly caste, the Magians, who, under the Medes, formed one of their original tribes, to whom was committed the preservation of such sciences as were known among them, and the performance of the offices of public devotion. Herodotus expressly names them as a distinct tribe of the Medes, and this arrangement, peculiar to the East, with which the Jewish annals have made us familiar, is further illustrated by the observations already offered respecting the priest-caste of the Egyptians. The reform of Zoroaster also addressed itself to these. According to his own professions, he was only the restorer of the doctrine which Ormuzd himself had promulgated in the days of Jemshid: this doctrine, however, had been misrepresented, a false and delusive Magia, the work of Devs, had crept in, which was first to be extinguished in order to restore the pure laws of Ormuzd. He composed the first and best of his treatises, the Vendidad, at a period when his doctrines had only begun to obtain the ascendency, and when the false Magians, the worshippers of the Devs, withstood him; hence the maledictions which he continually heaps upon them. We know from history that in the end his reformation triumphed, though we are not enabled to trace its progress in detail.

Zoroaster, therefore, must not be considered as the founder, but only the reformer of the caste of Magians, and to him must, therefore, be ascribed the internal constitution of this caste, though it may have subsequently received some further development. The three orders of Herbeds (disciples), Mobeds (masters), and Destur Mobeds (complete masters), into which they were divided, occur in his works. They alone were entitled to perform the offices of religion, they alone possessed the sacred formularies or liturgies by which Ormuzd was to be addressed, and were acquainted with the ceremonies by which the offering of prayers and sacrifice was to be accompanied. This was their peculiar knowledge and their study, and it was only by them that prayers and sacrifice could be presented to the deity. In this manner they came to be considered the only interlocutors between God and man; it was to them alone that Ormuzd revealed his will, they alone contemplated the future, and had the power of revealing it to such as inquired into it through them.

On these foundations was reared, both among the Persians and the Medes, the dignity of the priestly caste. The general belief in predictions, especially as derived from observation of the heavenly bodies, and the custom of undertaking no enterprise of moment without consulting those who were supposed acquainted with such oracles, as well as the blind confidence reposed in such pretenders, all conspired to give this class of men the highest influence, not only in the relations of private life, but also over public undertakings. In the days of Zoroaster, as at present, it was esteemed necessary to the dignity as well as the exigencies of an Asiatic court, that the person of the king should be surrounded by a multitude of soothsayers, wise men, and priests, who formed a part of his council. The origin of this persuasion, which has so universally and invariably prevailed in the East, may be left for others to discuss; but the extraordinary influence which it has exercised over the manners of private life and the constitution of the state at large, deserves the closest attention of every one who interests himself in the history of nations and their manners.