Zoroastrianism is quite contrary to the monotheism of the founder. Dr. Spiegel corroborates the statement of Dr. Haug: "As the Hebrew Jahveh, so is also Ahuramazda, the only God who creates; and all other beings, let them stand ever so high, are but his creatures. This view we find confronts us throughout the Avesta."1 Amongst the many aspects common to both, which Dr. Spiegel assures us must be referred back to Iran, the similarity not only of conception but of name must be included.2 It would take more space than I can afford to epitomise the results of the researches which tend to make good these statements. There have been confused and erroneous notions respecting Zoroaster's dualism and his connection with fire-worship; but there is one point upon which all students are agreed, viz., that the teaching of Zoroaster was an emphatic protest against element and nature worship, and was an exhortation to abandon polytheism for the worship of one Supreme God. We may be unable to satisfy ourselves that Zoroastrianism is older than the monotheism of the Hebrews, but we are sure that it must be assigned to prehistoric times, and those who refuse to believe in its originality have therefore the impracticable task of proving that, its inspirations were not the natural outgrowths of individual genius working upon superior knowledge, but the results of contact with Semitic races who had previously gained possession of the divine truth. 1 Erânische Altertums Kunde. 2 "Dieser name Javeh wird, Exod. iii. 14, als der unverânderlich Seiende erklärt, und man hat schon lange darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass das Wort Ahura ebenfals den Seiende bedeute, denn dasselbe kommt von ah, oder as, sein, her.” Eran. Alt. 459. LETTER VIII. BEARING upon the same topic we have yet other evidence to consult. Universal history, comparative mythology, and especially ancient cosmogonies, must be regarded as the surest of our guides in the absence of testimony more direct. As the whole thesis here maintained is that, ethnic unity accounts for community of ideas, it may be said that we are wasting our pains, for the book of Genesis has already stated the fact. Is not all mankind descended from Adam? and are we not told, "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech?" True; nevertheless these researches and the biblical records help each other. The Bible is a gainer by whatever testifies to its correctness; and modern criticism has derived incalculable assistance from the Old Testament. But we have a special interest in the origins of other races besides the Semitic. By comparing the theologies of the principal stocks of mankind in various stages of their culture, we provide ourselves with a gauge whereby to test the traditions of the ancient Hebrews. These traditions and the rabbinical doctrines spun out of them are the warp and woof of the Christian faith. Our labour, therefore, would not be wasted if it merely helped to prove the statement about the unity of language. Still less will it be wasted if it induces us to believe that the earliest forms of religion were everywhere similar; and that, while in one direction we can trace these through nature-worship down to animism, we can, in the other, trace them through polytheism up to the conception of one God. As for the fossil bones of history, we must not hope to reconstruct the once throbbing past with these. Nevertheless the prospects of discovery are very different to what they were a quarter of a century ago. The deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions-which were formerly thought to be decorative patterns, or the borings of some extinct worm-has revealed treasures of far more value than the gold and jewels to which the strange characters were also once supposed to relate. Unfortunately against these acquisitions some losses have to be written off. The revelations first won by the remarkable sagacity and industry of Sir Henry Rawlinson, Mr. Pinches, and others, have had to suffer some slight modification at the hands of these scholars themselves; and where we deemed our path secure, we have come upon signs which compel us. now and then to retrace our steps. Still, the cuneiform remains are the depositaries of the only information we are ever likely to obtain. They are records of an age in which the Turanians, the Hamites, the Semites, and the Aryans were mingled together. Media, Persia, Susiana, Babylonia, Chaldea, were the countries to which they belonged. In these countries, at the time many of the inscriptions were made, the Semites, the Indo-Europeans, and the Turanians were interspersed. The single circumstance that at Behistun, Persepolis, and other places of the Persian monarchy, monuments are inscribed in three languages, viz., Tâtar, Aryan, and Semitic, proves that these different races were then living in the closest intimacy. Besides this proof of contact, there is evidence (more important to our argument) of relationship reaching back into much older times. Speaking of the connection between the Hamites or Turanians of the valley of the Euphrates and the Hamites of Egypt, Sir H. Rawlinson says: "One of the most remarkable results arising from an analysis of the cuneiform alphabet is the evidence of an Aryan element in the vocabulary of the very earliest period, thus showing either that in that remote age there must have been an Aryan race dwelling on the Euphrates among the Hamite tribes, or that (as I myself think more probable) the distinction between Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian tongues had not been developed when picturewriting was first used in Chaldæa, but that the words then in use passed indifferently at a subsequent period, and, under certain modifications, into the three great families among which the languages of the world were divided." 1 Of the relationship that once existed between the Babylonians and the oldest of the Turanian stock, the Chinese, recent research has placed us beyond doubt. We were aware that Chinese traditions pointed to a western origin; and that at the earliest period to which these traditions refer, the nation was already far advanced in civilisation. Scholars of the present day affirm with confidence that the early home of the Chinese race was south of the Caspian sea; that the Chinese and Akkadian languages, as known to us through the cuneiform inscriptions, are akin; and that there are parallelisms between the Babylonian and Chinese astrotheology and also in their calendars so striking that they can only be explained by reference to a common source of civilisation. "The Akkadian syllabaries brought by George Smith and others from Babylonia furnish an identity of words and hieroglyphs which shows beyond reasonable doubt an unmistakable affinity between the written character of that region and of ancient China. . . . The cuneiform syllabaries have done more than furnish isolated instances of identity. A careful investigation into their contents, undertaken by M. Terrien, has been rewarded by the discovery of fragments identical with the Yih King in the Akkadian language." When inquiring into the origin of religions, and when taking into consideration what is similar be 2 2 VOL. I. 1 Herodotus, Essay vi. H tween them or what is common to all, such facts as these, if facts they be, must be carefully borne in mind. If we look to the religion of the Hebrews, whichever influence we take into account, whether it be early and long-continued intercourse with old-established races, or original affinity not yet obliterated at the time of Abram, either would inevitably determine the religious notions of the Abrahamites, whatever reform may have been introduced by the genius of their founder. The centre of intercourse at the epoch of Hebrew beginnings was Babylonia. The first mention of the Hebrew patriarch is in connection with "Ur of the Chaldees." "Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," are amongst the first places known to the Hebrew people. The land of Shinar was their first settled home and the land of Shinar is Babylonia. Fortunately Babylonia and Chaldea happen to be the lands of the cuneiform inscriptions. Fortunately also we have (at second hand) some fragments of history compiled from the archives of Babylon by the Babylonian priest, Berosus, who lived about the beginning or middle of the third century before our era. The discoveries of MM. Lenormant and Jules Oppert and the late George Smith have cast some doubt upon the accuracy of Berosus. But within the limits of a few centuries harmony of dates does not affect the main question here at issue. Without any nicety of detail, we have sufficient ground for believing (1) that the Zoroastrian Aryans and the early Semites came together before or near the time of Abraham; (2) that there is actual proof both of intercourse and affinity between the early Semites and the Hamites or Turanians; (3) that ethnological development was accompanied by a corresponding development in religious conceptions. To take the first two heads as they stand, let us suppose the original home of Zoroastrianism to have been in the vicinity of Atropatene or in the plains watered by the Araxes; which are generally held to be near the cradle of |