CHAPTER VI. (Parenthetical.)

THE UNITY OF LIFE AND SELF AS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH IN THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. - THE ETHER THE MEDIUM OF UNIVERSE-LIFE. - REVIEW OF OLD RELIGIONS.

UNDERNEATH the temporary monotheisms or monotheistic conceptions of India, of Egypt, and of Chaldæa,— underneath the permanent monotheistic worships, — by the Hebrews, first of the Chaldæan monotheistic idea, El, then of the Phoenician monotheistic idea, Yah, — and by the Irano-Aryans of the monotheistic idea, VarunaAhura, nay, beneath all known religious theories, there has always lain a principle, which of late seems more and more to be coming to the surface as the one substantial truth in all these systems, and which, from many signs of the times, I believe will hereafter, - stripped of extraneous additions, — constitute in its simplicity the acknowledged basis of religion. Before proceeding, then, with the review of Hebraism and Christianity as we have them in the Bible, I have thought it best to state that underlying principle, that the reader may appreciate the stand-point from which the review will be taken.

A rational and unbiassed examination of the religions. of the past discloses the fact, that, without exception, they were the productions of the human imagination, in all their peculiarities except those flowing directly from the instinctive, and therefore, (we may reasonably believe,) — infallible feeling which was their base and origin;

that of man's duty and responsibility to a Being, unknown except as instinctively revealed by this same

life. This period, of two centuries, is also about the natural one for a dynasty of ten to eleven kings. Before parting from the Chaldæan legend, it will be well to give a final résumé of its connection with Zathraus or Sisathra.

As, according to the united testimony of several ancient authors, their Zathraustes or Zoroastres introduced the practice of stellar observations into Chaldæa, and as the period of the commencement of these observations is fixed, with unusual accuracy for so early a period, by the valuable testimony of Simplicius, at 2234 B.C., we must place this date within the reign of Zathraustes or Sisathra. Supposing the latter's authority to have commenced six years before, in 2240, and to have lasted the not unnaturally long period, for so remarkable a reign, of forty years, we have 2200 B.C., or a little earlier, as the approximate date, at which he abandoned Chaldæa, leaving the native dynasty of Izdubar in his place, and, crossing the Nizir or Zagros mountains, where he was believed to have been "translated," established his Aryans on the Caspian. The same date of 2200 B.C., of course marks also the commencement of the first native Chaldæan dynasty, which, whether Izdubar himself be man or myth, we may fairly infer from his legend to have been on friendly terms with the Aryans, or with their famous leader and the late ruler of Chaldæa.

The collision between the "Bactrian,” “Zoroaster," and "Ninus," -spoken of by Justin, Arnobius, Cephalion, etc., was doubtless some hostility between the Aryans from Bakhdi or Bactria, and the early people dwelling about the site where the city Ninus or Nineveh was afterwards built; for the imaginary man Ninus was, in reality, only a personification of this city. This alleged event, however, at least shows the belief of the early authors, Justin and others, that "Zoroaster" was contemporary with, or a little earlier than, the foundation of Nineveh. The most probable theory respecting the founding of that city is, that Bel-Nimrod (Izdubar) was its founder;

a

theory confirmed by the right reading of Gen. x. 11, which should be: "Out of that land he" [Nimrod] "went forth to Asshur" [Assyria] "and builded Nineveh," etc. This legendary founder, under the name, (Belus,) which had been formed from El or Ilus by the prefix Ba, was worshipped long afterward as the tutelary god of Chaldæa. No trace, however, of this identification of Belus with Izdubar, appears in the early "Legend."

Diodorus Siculus, in speaking of the Bactrian invaders of "Ninus," makes the name of their prince, who was also their priest, — Oxyartes; — a name which is identifiable with that of Otsiartes, Otiartes or Ardates, (UbAratutu,) the father, according to Berosus and the tablets, of Xisouthros or Sisathra.

Median history, according to Rawlinson, begins from the date of the first Chaldæan astronomical observations; -inspired as has been said, by Zathraus, Zarathustra or "Zoroaster." The silence of early history in regard to the Medians from this date forward, which Rawlinson notes, is in harmony with that peaceful withdrawal of this nation behind the Elburz, and that contented settlement on the remote Caspian, which I have inferred from comparison of the early stories of "Zoroaster" with the "Izdubar Legend."

"From B.C. 2234 to B.C. 835," says the learned Canon, ("Five Great Monarchies," iii. 165,) “Median history is a blank." In those fertile regions, fortified by vast ranges and by the sea, they were safe from attack; - they were weary of wandering and fighting, and they settled down in an inglorious and happy obscurity to their favorite pursuit of agriculture, and to the practice of the elevated worship which they had learned from Sisathra or Zarathustra ; — forgotten or ignored by mankind for no less than fourteen centuries.

"Zoroastrian" ideas had much influence on the religion of the Hebrews, who, many centuries after the Aryan law-giver, lived so long under the patronage of the Persian

kings. I therefore give a few details of the interesting Yaçna or Zarathustrian doctrine.

Purity was required to be inward as well as outward, — of motive as well as of deed, of soul as of body. Agriculture was held to be a sacred duty; man, it was taught, was placed upon earth to preserve the good creation, by careful tilling of the soil, eradication of thorns and weeds, and reclamation of the land from Angrô-mainyus' curse of barrenness. (These ideas, and the story of Meshia, the gardener, are perhaps the source of the fable of the first man being a gardener, embodied in Genesis, and which is so contradictory of the well-known and deep-rooted Semitic feeling of the superiority of the herdsman, and his mode of life and occupation, to all others, as we see in the "Preference of Abel," etc.) Each Zoroastrian must "further the works of life" by advancing tillage; — (Yaçna, xxxiii. 3).

From Rawlinson's "Five Great Monarchies," (iii. 114116,) I take the following:

"Piety consisted in the acknowledgment of the one true God, Ahura-mazda, and of his holy angels, the Amesha Spenta or Amshaspands; — in the frequent offering of prayers, praises and thanksgivings; in the recitation of hymns," [Gâthâs,] "the performance of the reformed Sôma ceremony, and the occasional sacrifice of animals;" -(chiefly horses, from their immense herds.) The Hôma ceremony, as reformed by the Iranian-Aryans from the degenerated Sôma rite of their cousins, the Indo-Aryans, consisted in the extraction of the juice of the sacred plant (the Asclepias acida) by the priests during recitation of prayers; —“the formal presentation of the liquid," [slightly if at all intoxicating in its new state,] "to the sacrificial fire; the consumption of a small portion by the priest, and the division of the rest among the worshippers." The flesh, if any, used in the sacrifice, was, in like manner, first shown to the fire, and then eaten by the priest and the people.

This ceremony was regarded as mystically securing the favor of Heaven. God himself, (Ahura-mazda,) was supposed to join in the feast. The formal presentation of the hôma- (or sôma-) wine by the priest, first to the altar, -and then, by solemn division, among the congregation, has, we cannot doubt, left its trace, to this day, in the Roman Catholic presentation of the "elements" or "host," "hostia" or victim, (bread and wine,) by the priest, first to the altar, and then towards the people, and in the solemn division of the same bread and wine among the people in the eucharist or holy communion of Protes- . tant ceremonial. In the same way, the Hebrew priests "waved" the shoulders and breasts of the sacrificed animals towards the altar, on which only the entrails and blood were really burnt. The eatable portions, having been thus "waved" or formally offered to God, were then put aside to be eaten by the priest's family.

The unreformed Sôma rite of the Indo-Aryans, in which intoxication was made an act of worship, was in like manner the origin of the Greek and Roman "mysteries" of Bacchus, (the "Indian").

It need scarcely be remarked that no good reason is found in the Gospels for believing, that such formalities as "host-presentation," "mass," or "eucharist," were either devised or prescribed by Christ. The simple interpretation of his affecting words to the disciples at the last supper, is, that he desired his "brethren," when they thereafter should break bread and pour out wine at their meals, to do so in remembrance of him whose body was about to be broken and his blood poured out for them. The early church, having (perhaps unconsciously) revived the ancient ceremonial of the hôma feasts in commemoration of him, interpreting literally his strong Eastern figures of speech, his illustrations, by bread and wine, would lose none of their strength at the hands of transcribers, but would become a seeming assertion of the identity of the bread with his body.