things, and that he assigned the first and highest rank of them to Oromasdes, who, in the oracles, is called the Father; the lowest to Arimanes; and the middle to Mithras, who, in the same oracles, is called the second mind. Whereupon he observes, how great an agreement there was betwixt the Zoroastrian and the Platonic Trinity, they differing in a manner only in words.”[1]
“And, indeed, from that which Plutarch affirms, that the Persians, from their God Mithras, called any Mediator, or middle betwixt two, Mithras, it may be more reasonably concluded, that Mithras, according to the Persian theology, was properly the middle hypostasis, of that triplasian, or triplicated deity of theirs, than that he should be a middle, self-existent God, or Mediator, betwixt two adversary Gods, unmade, one good, and the other evil, as Plutarch would suppose.”[2] If it were now needful, we might make it still further evident that Zoroaster, “notwithstanding the multitude of Gods worshiped by him, was an asserter of one Supreme, from his own description of God, extant in Eusebius: God is the first incorruptible, eternal, indivisible, most unlike to every thing, the head or leader of all good; unbribable, the best of the good, the wisest of the wise; He is also the Father of law and justice, self-taught, perfect, and the only inventor of the natural holy.—Eusebius tells us that the Zoroastrian description of God was contained verbatim in a book, entitled A Holy Collection of the Persian Monuments: as also, that Ostanes (himself a famous Magician and admirer of Zoroaster) had recorded the very same of him in his Octateuchon.”[3]
4. Porphyry, in his treatise, de antro Nympharum, says, “Zoroaster first of all, as Eubolus testifieth, in the mountains adjoining to Persia, consecrated a native orbicular cave, adorned with flowers and watered with fountains, to the honour of Mithras, the maker and father of all things; this cave being an image or symbol to him of the whole world which was made by Mithras; which testimony of Eubolus is the more to be valued because, as Porphyrius elsewhere informs us, he wrote the history of Mithras at large in many books,—from whence it may be presumed that he had thoroughly furnished himself with the knowledge of what belonged to the Persian religion. Wherefore, from the authority of Eubolus, we may well conclude also, that notwithstanding the Sun was generally worshiped by the Persians as a God, yet Zoroaster and the ancient Magi, who were best initiated in Mithraick mysteries, asserted another Deity, superior to the Sun, for the true Mithras, such as was the maker and father of all things, or of the whole world, whereof the Sun is a part. However, these also looked upon the Sun as the most lively image of the Deity in which it was worshiped by them, as they likewise worshiped the same Deity symbolically in fire, as Maximus Tyrius informeth us; agreeable to which is that in the Magic oracles; All things are the offsprings of one fire; that is, of one Supreme Deity. And Julian, the Emperor, was such a devout Sun worshiper as this, who acknowledged, besides the Sun, another incorporeal deity, transcendant to it.”[4] The first kind of things (according to Zoroaster) is eternal, the Supreme God. In the first place (saith Eusebius) they conceive that God the Father and King ought to be ranked. This the Delphian Oracle (cited by Porphyrius) confirms:—Chaldees and Jews wise only, worshiping purely a self-begotten God and King.
“This is that principle of which the author of the Chaldaic Summary saith, They conceive there is one principle of all things, and declare that is one and good.
“God (as Pythagoras learnt of the Magi, who term him Oromasdes) in his body resembles light; in his soul truth.”
