world of their own, where they shall suffer in everlasting darkness the punishment of their evil deeds; and the angel of light, and his disciples, shall also go into a world of their own, where they shall receive in everlasting light the reward due unto their good deeds: and that after this they shall remain separated for ever, and light and darkness be no more mixed together to all eternity. And all this the remainder of that sect which is now in Persia and India, do, without any variation, after so many ages, still hold even to this day. And how consonant this is to the truth is plain enough to be understood without a comment. And whereas he taught that God originally created the good angel only, and that the other followed only by the defect of good, this plainly shews, that he was not unacquainted with the revolt of the fallen angels, and the entrance of evil into the world that way, but had been thoroughly instructed how that God at first created all his angels good, as he also did man, and that they that are now evil became such wholly through their own fault, in falling from that state which God first placed them in. All which plainly shews the author of this doctrine to have been well versed in the sacred writing of the Jewish religion, out of which it manifestly appears to have been all taken.”[1]
Another reformation which Zoroaster is said to have introduced, was, the building of temples, for before his time the altars were all erected upon hills and high places in the open air. Upon those the sacred fire was kept burning, but to which they denied that they offered adoration, but only to God in the fire.[2] It is said that Zoroaster pretended to have been taken up into heaven, and to have heard God speak from the midst of a flame of fire; that, therefore, fire is the truest shekinah of the Divine presence; and that the sun is the most perfect fire—for which reason he ordered them to direct their worship towards the sun, which they called Mithra. He pretended to have brought fire from heaven along with him, which was never permitted to go out. It was fed with clean wood, and it was deemed a great crime to blow upon it, or to rekindle it except from the sun or the sacred fire in some other temple. Thus the Jews had their shekinah or sacred fire in which God dwelt, and which came down from heaven upon their altar of burnt-offerings: and Nadab and Abihu were punished with death for offering incense to God with other fire. The Jews used clean peeled wood for the fire, and, like the Persians, would not permit it to be blown upon with the mouth.
To feed the sacred fire with unhallowed fuel, was punishable with death; to blow upon it the same. But though it was thus treated with the most profound veneration, as a part of the glorious luminary of heaven, it was not worshiped; though the Lord Jehovah, who shrouded himself in the sacred fire, or took up his residence in the sun, was worshiped. Thus God upon Sinai or Horeb, or in the bush, appeared in a flame of fire to Moses, who fell down on his face to it. Yet the text means to represent that he worshiped God, not fire.
A very ingenious and learned critic,[3] in his controversy with Dean Prideaux, has maintained, that the Persians destroyed the temples in Egypt, because they disapproved the worshiping of God in temples, when the whole earth was his temple; and that they had only two Principles and never acknowledged a third, superior to the Good and Evil ones, till about the time of the Christian æra. He seems to be mistaken in both these respects. The fact that the Persians had no closed temples in the time of Herodotus, may be very true, and cannot well be disputed, as he affirms it: but notwithstanding this, it is plain that though they did not choose to have temples of their own, they had no objection to the temple-worship of others; because if they had, they would not have restored the temples of the Jews and Samaritans at Jerusalem and Gerizim. This
