The History of Antiquity Volume V Part 11

[292] "Vend." 13, 22, 25.

[293] "Vend." 19, 100-108.

[294] "Vend." 8, 252, 310; 19, 94; cf. 3, 118-121. In the d.i.n.kart the proceedings on the bridge are related at greater length.

[295] Vol. IV., 61, 163, 230.

[296] "Farvardin Yasht," 35-48, 70, 71.

[297] "Farvardin Yasht," 61, 62.

[298] "Farvardin Yasht," 50-52.

[299] Diogen. Laert. "Prooem." 6.

[300] "Vend." 19, 46, 48.

[301] "Yacna," 1, 47; 23, 6; Burnouf, "Commentaire," p. 571.

[302] Plut. "Artax." 15; Theopomp. Fragm. 135, ed. Muller.

[303] "Yacna," 45, 3; 47, 1; above, p. 156.

[304] "Vend." 19, 17-19; above, p. 135.

[305] "Zamyad Yasht," 89, 95, 96.

[306] 3, 62.

[307] Theopomp. Fragm. 71, 72, ed. Muller.

[308] "Yacna," 19, 16-18.

[309] "Yacna," 26, 32; "Farvardin Yasht," 135.

[310] "Aban Yasht," 21-23; "Farvardin Yasht," 157; "As.h.i.+ Yasht," 24; "Zamyad Yasht," 26.

[311] "Ram Yasht," 11; "Zamyad Yasht," 28.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRIESTHOOD OF IRAN

In the form in which we have them the books of the Avesta are the work of the priests of Eastern Iran. According to the evidence repeatedly furnished by them, there were three orders in Sogdiana and Bactria: priests, warriors, and husbandmen. This sequence, which is uniformly preserved both in the invocations and in the book of the law, shows that the priests had risen above the warriors, and claimed to be the first of the three orders.[312]

In considering the civilisation of the Bactrian kingdom we found ourselves compelled by the proximity of the nations of the steppes to a.s.sume, that when the Arians had become established there, the tribes which had a capacity or love for battle, undertook the protection of the land, the flocks and fields, against the incursions of the nomads of the north, and made battle and strife their special vocation. Such attacks increased with the increasing culture of Bactria, and led to a consolidation of powers; these clans raised one of their number distinguished in battle to be their leader, or followed him, and thus was laid the basis for the foundation of a great state. The importance ascribed in the Avesta to the splendour of majesty--we find the personification of good government in the Avesta among the Amesha cpentas--in combination with the battles which, as we learn from the book, the princes of Bactria carried on against the Turanians, and with the statements in the West Iranian Epos about the kingdom of the Bactrians, together with the later condition of the country, allowed us to draw the conclusion that at one time the kings of Bactria were not without power and importance. They reigned, surrounded by the families of the warriors, who were enabled by their possessions in lands and flocks, to devote themselves to the practice of arms and to battle. The invocations to Mithra, Verethraghna, and Vayu, bear upon them very evident traces of a war-like spirit (p. 110, 114). That the spirits of the sky, which once fought with the cloud-dragons, have become mortal heroes in the Avesta, also proves--since even among other nations the Epic poetry which follows periods of warlike excitement transforms shapes of the sky into heroes of old time--that once on a time Bactria had experienced a period of warfare, when difficulties arose which it was mainly the business of the monarchy and the n.o.bles to settle. The Avesta can tell us of arms and robes as well as of palaces with pillars and turrets; of earthen, iron, silver and golden vessels; of mats, carpets, and adornments of gold,[313] such as are found among n.o.ble families; and those hecatombs of horses, cattle, and sheep which the heroes in the Avesta sacrifice to Anahita and Drvacpa, in order to obtain their favour by victory, are no doubt borrowed from the sacrifices which princes and n.o.bles were wont to offer in cases where the numbers must be enlarged in honour of the heroes. Yet we see that Xerxes orders a thousand oxen to be sacrificed at one time. We have already shown (IV. 390), how important and pre-eminent was the position which the races of the warriors, "the princes," occupied on the Indus and the Ganges, and what respect they commanded among "the free Indians"

in the Panjab, even in the fourth century B.C. That a warlike n.o.bility of a similar character, att.i.tude, and position, existed in Eastern Iran, is the less to be doubted, as the order of warriors in the Avesta is denoted by a name (_rathaestar_) which goes back to the chariots of war.

The husbandmen, who were settled beside and among them, bear in the Avesta the name of Vactrya,[314] but the word Vaecu is also used for them, which simply repeats the name of the Indian Vaicyas.

Like the Arians of India, the Arians of Iran believed in the power of the correct invocations, prayers, and sacrifice; among them also the sacrifice strengthens the G.o.ds and increases their power. In India too, the priests, and minstrels, and sacrificers handed down in their families the knowledge of the effective invocations and ceremonies which exercised compulsion on the G.o.ds, and the same was the case in Eastern Iran; priestly families arose at a very early period. They did not here retain the name of supplicators, as in India; but are called Athravas in the Avesta. In the Veda Atharvan kindles the sacrificial fire, and among the Arians of India the incantations of the race of Atharvan pa.s.sed from the most powerful. In a similar way powerful invocations and sentences were handed down in Iran from father to son in the race of the Athravas. These families preserved the ancient invocations to Mithra, Verethraghna, Anahita, Tistrya, which are preserved to us in the Avesta, though in a modified form. The G.o.d Haoma instructs Zarathrustra to praise him, as the other fire-priests had done (p. 124). The reform which bears the name of Zarathrustra cannot have left the condition of the priests unchanged. The doctrine may, as invocations in the Avesta would seem to show, have first found adherents in the race of Haechatacpa, to which Zarathrustra belonged, and to which he first proclaimed his law (131), and next in the race of Jamacpa and Frashaostra, who are spoken of as Zarathrustra's most zealous followers.

According to the creed of the Pa.r.s.ees the good law also came to Aderbat Mahresfant by family descent (p. 62). These new races of priests, who knew the sayings, invocations, and prayers of Zarathrustra, would then be joined by those among the races of the old fire-priests who approved of the reform, and the priesthood thus formed would be further strengthened by those who, deeply impressed by the new doctrine, sought and found reception as pupils into a family of the priests, thus entering into their circle, and becoming members of their families.

United by a new doctrine and settled tenets, the priests who represented the reform would become united together more firmly than the priestly families of the old time.

The priesthood could very well claim precedence of the warriors; on their prayers and sayings, their knowledge of the custom of sacrifice, depended the favour of the G.o.ds, the power of averting evil spirits, the removal of pollution, salvation in this world and the next. Yet they could not obtain such a position as the Brahmans held on the Ganges after the reform of the ancient faith, and the victory of Brahman over Indra. For in Iran there was no order of cudras, no vanquished remnant of an old population, which created a sharp line of division even among the orders of the Aryas; and moreover the Brahmans were the first-born of Brahman, a purer incarnation of the divine nature than any other order. The world had not emanated from Auramazda; there were in Iran no gradations of beings in which the divine essence existed in a more or less pure condition. All had to fight against evil deities and against evil; the priests were the leaders in this struggle--this leaders.h.i.+p and nothing more could they claim. In their lives they studied especial purity of body and mind; and they were pre-eminently "the pure men."

Only by their means, at any rate with their a.s.sistance, could sacrifice be offered; from their mouths alone could the correct invocations be uttered to the G.o.ds, and the evil ones be driven away. Men were compelled to submit to the rules of the life acceptable to the G.o.ds of light, of pure conversation, which were accurately known to the priests only; they had to take upon themselves the expiations which the priests prescribed, in order to wipe out offences and sins and their consequences--but they had not to reverence in them, as was the case beyond the Indus, a cla.s.s of creatures raised by birth to a higher level. Hence the sharp separation of the priesthood from the rest of the orders, in the Brahmanic fas.h.i.+on, was at once placed out of the question. The priesthood of Iran perpetuated their knowledge and wisdom in their families; but they had not the right to bar all entrance into their families or their order on the score of higher birth, or to prohibit the marriage of priests with women of other orders, on the ground of their superior nature.

From our fragments of the Avesta we may a.s.sume that although, as is obvious, the precedence of the priests above the remaining orders was strongly marked, and they were especially denoted as "pure men," the limits of their political and social position were far more modest than those of the Brahmans. So far as we can see, the Avesta allots no special income to the priests beyond the camels, horses, or small cattle given to them by warriors and husbandmen in quittance for the purifications they have performed. The penalties also which have to be paid in expiation of certain offences are to be given to "the pure men,"

and the Avesta repeatedly recommends the presentation of gifts to them.

On the other hand, the priests do not possess the exclusive right to perform purifications. The Vendidad merely says that any one who wishes to perform purifications must have learned the law from one of the purifiers, _i.e._ it is only the instruction of the priest which is indispensable in this matter. Any one who performs purification without such instruction (except in the case of necessary purifications, p.

230), will take away from the places where it is performed, "food and fatness, health and all remedies, prosperity, luxuriance and growth, and increase of corn and fodder; and corn and fodder will not return to such places until for three days and nights the holy craosha has been praised at the burning fire with bound withes and uplifted Haoma." The uncertified purifier is to be put in chains, his clothes taken from him, and his head cut off.[315] If it was permitted to learn the purifications, it follows that men not of priestly descent could enter the order of the Athravas, and the boundary line between this order and the rest was not impa.s.sable. Among the Pa.r.s.ees of India any one can become a priest. The duties of the priest, according to the book of the law, consist in watching and tending the sacred fire, in praising the good spirits, in offering sacrifice, and performing purifications, and in the ceaseless study of the holy scriptures. The priest is to be provided with a mortar made according to certain rules, a cup (for the Haoma sacrifice), the snake-switch (a stick for killing impure animals), and the Paitidana, _i.e._ a piece of cloth for veiling the mouth, in order that he may not approach the sacred fire with breath that is possibly impure. For the rest, the Vendidad lays down the rule that the priests are to be patient and content, and satisfied with a little bread, and they ought to eat what is offered to them.[316] Auramazda says; "Many men, O Zarathrustra, carry the Paitidana, the serpent-switch, the sacred bundle of twigs, without being guided according to the law. These are wrongly called priests; do not thou call them priests, O Zarathrustra. He who lies the whole night without praising or hearing, or reciting, or learning, or teaching--call not such an one a priest. Call him a priest, O pure Zarathrustra, who inquires of the pure intelligence the whole night, of the wisdom which purifies from sins and makes the heart wide, which has merits in store on the bridge of Chinvat, and causes us to attain the purity and bliss of Paradise."[317] The Avesta distinguishes different cla.s.ses of priests, but the distinction only rests on the various acts which they perform in the sacred rites. The first rank is taken by the Zaotar, who utters the prayers and invocations (the Hotar, _i.e._ the Repeater of the Veda); next to him apparently is the craoshavareza, "who speaks very wise and truthful things;"[318] he bears the club of craosha, in order to keep the evil spirits at a distance from the sacred acts; then comes the Atarevaksha, _i.e._ the priest who causes the fire to increase, and attends to the wors.h.i.+p of it; then the Acnatar (the Washer), who has to cleanse the instruments of sacrifice to keep them from pollution; the Frabaretar, _i.e._ the Carrier, etc. In the modern ritual of the Pa.r.s.ees all the duties of the sacred service have been transferred to the Zaotar and the Racpi, which latter discharges the functions of ministering priest.

If we were only approximately correct in placing the date of Zarathrustra and the reform of the ancient faith at 1000 B.C., the formation of this priestly order, which took place on the basis of the new doctrine, may have come to an end about the year 800 B.C. We saw that from this date onwards the spread of the new doctrine must have begun in the west of Iran towards the Medes and Persians, since there existed among the Medes from 700 B.C. an hereditary priesthood, charged with the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds according to the regulations of Zarathrustra, and in this century it was already sufficiently numerous to be placed as an equal division beside the tribes of the Medes.

We have no better information about the priests of the West than we have on the political and social position of the priests of Eastern Iran.

They are not called Athravas but Magush. This name is first found in the inscription which Darius caused to be cut on the rock-wall of Behistun; afterwards it was consistently used by Western writers, from Herodotus to Agathias, for the priests of Iran. The Avesta has the words _magha_ and _maghavan_, i.e. the powerful, the great,[319] but does not use it of the priests, which are always called Athravas. If the last t.i.tle is taken from the fire-wors.h.i.+p, the first allows us to see the importance of the priests. He who can use incantations to the G.o.ds and spirits--can summon or remove them--is the mighty one, the powerful. If in this name we have evidence of the respect with which the laity of Western Iran looked up to the priests, the difference between the names in the East and West shows that there were priestly races among the Medes and Persians before the religion of Zarathrustra reached them. Had not such existed before the reform, and had they not possessed a definite name in the West--had priestly families become known there for the first time at the rise of the reform--they would never have had any other name than that of Athravas. Even without this positive proof we might a.s.sume that from all antiquity there had been priests among the Medes and Persians who understood how to invoke the G.o.ds of light in the old Arian faith--Mithra and Verethraghna, Vayu and Tistrya--and tend the fire which destroyed demons. When the new doctrine reached from the East to Ragha and then to Media (p. 96), the old races who pa.s.sed over to the new faith united with the families the members of which were the prophets of the new doctrine. The teachers of the Medes in old times, which Pliny called successors of Zarathrustra, might have stood at the head of this transformation of the ancient priestly families, of the creation of the Median priesthood on the basis of the new religion (p.

92). However this may have been, the priestly families among the Medes were so numerous, their connection and union so close and firmly fixed, that they could be counted as a sixth tribe beside the other five Median tribes.

Among the tribes of the Persians Herodotus mentions no tribe of Magi. It would be a mistake to conclude from this that there were originally no priests among the Persians, and to put faith in Xenophon's statement that Cyrus was the first to give the Magians the care of the sacred fire, "because he preferred to go on board with the pious rather than the impious."[320] No one will maintain that the Persians in ancient times were without wors.h.i.+p and religious rites, or that when they accepted the doctrine of Zarathrustra, which did not permit sacrifice without Magians, they used the services of none but alien priests. Such a proceeding would be absurd. The proper conclusion from the fact that Herodotus does not mention a tribe of Magians among the Persians is that the priestly families there were less numerous; they had not broken away from the tribal connections to which they originally belonged, and formed themselves into a separate community. Further, from the fact that the priestly families of the Persians in old times had not formed themselves into a separate community, we may conclude--and indeed the conclusion follows from the position of Media and the notice in the Avesta about Ragha, and the observation about the ancient teachers of the Medes, who are said to have been followers of Zarathrustra--that the reform of the faith first came from Bactria to the Medes, that it was adopted and more strongly represented among them, and so pa.s.sed on to the Persians. We cannot doubt that there were Persians belonging to the order of Magians. If Plato and his pupils call Zoroaster the "teacher of the Magians," and at the same time "a Persian," they must a.s.sume that there were Magians among the Persians; if, according to Plato's statement, the four teachers of the heirs to the Persian throne, of which one had to teach the Magism of Zoroaster, were selected out of "all the Persians;"--if at the time of Xerxes there were Persians who wrote on the doctrine of Zoroaster, they must have been initiated in the wisdom and knowledge of the Magians, and have known their invocations and customs; the contents of the holy scriptures and the scriptures themselves can hardly have been hidden from them. In order to prove that the Magians, _i.e._ the priests, belonged exclusively to the Medes, the fact has been brought forward that the Persians, after Darius had dethroned the Pseudo-Smerdis, celebrated each year the feast of the slaughter of the Magians, at which no Magian allowed himself to be seen, but all were obliged to remain at home.[321] The Magophonia was not the celebration of a victory over the Magi generally, but over the removal of a usurper, and the restoration of the dominion to the Achaemenids, which had been taken from them by one who happened to be a Magian.

Herodotus at any rate calls this Magian a Mede.[322] Darius contents himself with calling him the "Magian." Hence there is no ground to doubt that both before and after the reform, families of the Persians were charged with the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds; the less so because Plato, as already remarked, represents the heirs to the throne in Persia as being instructed in the doctrine of Zoroaster, while Strabo and Pausanias speak expressly of "Persian Magi," and the chief Magian is enumerated among the tribes "which dwell in the districts of Persis."[323]

When the dominion of the Achaemenids had been established over Iran, the priestly families of all the West must have been united into one community. There is no doubt that this remained an order in which the priestly wisdom and knowledge were traditional. Strabo, like Herodotus, calls the Magians a tribe; he adds that the members of it sought after a holy life. The tribe was large, he tells us in another place; Magians could be found even in Cappadocia. Ammia.n.u.s also informs us that the Magians handed down their doctrines to later times, each by his descendants. Growing up through centuries from a small number, the Magians became a nation, and being regarded as dedicated to the service of the G.o.ds, they had acquired respect through their religion. They inhabited open villages, lived according to a law of their own, and possessed fruitful fields in the district called Nisaea. Agathias also calls the Magians a tribe.[324] But the separation of the priestly order in the West cannot have been more strict than that of the Athravas in the East. Marriage with the women of other orders was not forbidden, nor transition from other orders into that of the Medes. The Avesta speaks of the teacher and the pupil (p. 203); and it is expressly said--though the statement comes from the beginning of the third century of our era--that the Magians among the Persians, _i.e._ the Magians under the Arsacids, instructed even those who were not Persians in their doctrine, but only at the special command of the king.[325]

We find the Magians in close proximity to the rulers of the Medes and Persians; they were not without importance and influence. In Herodotus they tell Astyages that they had and would have great honours from him.[326] Xenophon speaks of them as determining, at the time of Cyrus, which G.o.d is to be honoured on each day.[327] Cambyses charges Magians with the duty of watching the grave of Cyrus, and this office became hereditary in their families;[328] he also entrusts a Magian with the care of the royal household, while he marches with the army into the remote parts of Egypt and Nubia. The inscriptions of Darius showed us how much in earnest he was with the doctrines and regulations of the religion--how lively was his faith. On his march to h.e.l.las, Xerxes was accompanied by Osthanes, a man skilled in the priestly dogmas, and by Magians; they offer sacrifice, and charm the storms.[329] The sacred fire which was carried before the kings[330] was conducted by Magians, and so also were the sacred chariot, the sacred horses of Mithra and the sun-G.o.d, in the campaigns of the Achaemenids (p. 167). Of greater importance was it that the heirs to the throne in Persia were instructed, as Plato tells us, in the Magism of Zoroaster,[331] which could only be done by Magians. Nicolaus of Damascus relates that the Persian princes were instructed by the Magians in truthfulness, justice, and the laws of their country;[332] and, according to Plutarch, Magians were the educators of the Persian princes; Magians also under the Achaemenids performed the consecration at the accession of a new king.[333] We are also told that this king of the Medes and that of the Persians, took the advice of the Magians on important occasions. Under the Arsacids they formed, along with the members of the race of the kings, the supreme council of the kingdom; in the time when this dynasty was at its height they ruled, as Pliny told us, "over the king of kings;" and we have seen (p. 60) that their influence under the Sa.s.sanids, at court, in the administration of law, and in politics, was even more powerful.

Herodotus maintains that the Magians also occupied themselves with soothsaying and prophecy; like Ctesias, he ascribes to the Medes the interpretation of certain dreams and other miraculous acts. Of such interpretations and prophesying on the part of the priests the Avesta knows nothing, and those Greeks who were better informed, warmly contested the a.s.sertion that the Magians were occupied with such things.

Plato tells us: "The Magism of Zoroaster is the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds;"

and Aristotle a.s.sures us that the Magians knew nothing of soothsaying.[334] What Herodotus tells us, on the other side, he certainly did not invent, but repeats after his informants. The Medo-Persian Epos, which, though indirectly, forms the basis of Herodotus' account of the rise of Cyrus and the death of Cambyses, allowed a wide field, even in the account of the fall of the a.s.syrian empire (III. 264), to the astrological and prophetic wisdom of the Chaldaeans. From this we may conclude that prophecies of the Chaldaeans were not left out of sight at the overthrow of Astyages. In Nicolaus of Damascus it is a Chaldaean of Babylon who expounds her dream to the mother of Cyrus,[335] and possibly the kings of the Medes followed the example of the a.s.syrian and Babylonian courts in having astrologers and interpreters of dreams from Babylon about them.

Whatever was the influence employed by the Magians at the court of the Achaemenids, the Arsacids and Sa.s.sanids, their influence was of a moral nature; it was only through the effect of religion on the heart and conscience of the king, that they could work; their position did not rest on any hierarchical inst.i.tutions. In Iran the priesthood had no real means of power which permitted it to come forward in opposition to the power of the State. The priest was a subject of the king like any one else. It was within the king's power to proceed at his pleasure with the severest corporal punishment against the Magi, and it is abundantly clear that the kings did not shrink from inflicting such punishments, even if we do not regard as established facts the stories that Astyages impaled the Magians who had given him a false report, and that Darius caused forty Magians to be executed at once.[336]

Diogenes Laertius relates that the Magians lived on lentils, bread and cheese, which agrees with the Avesta to the extent that the priests are there commanded to be content with a little food.[337] What Herodotus tells us of the duties and occupation of the Magians agrees entirely with the rules given in the Avesta for the Athravas. No one could sacrifice without a Magian; the sacrifices were offered on high places (in this Xenophon agrees[338]) or in "pure places;" the most delicate gra.s.s was spread--we remember the importance of the Kuca-gra.s.s in the Veda and the Brahmanas--on this gra.s.s the flesh of the sacrifice was laid; the Magians sang the theogony, _i.e._ long sacrificial prayers, and the sacred rite is fulfilled. Herodotus also a.s.serts that the Magians took great pride in killing serpents, ants, and other winged and creeping things with their own hands; that human life was greatly respected by them; that the dog was held in high honour (p. 86); and the corpses of the Magians were exposed to dogs or birds of prey. This he declares that he knows to be the truth; Xenophon represents the Magians as beginning their songs of praise with the break of day, and as offering their sacrifices at certain places, which were selected for the G.o.ds. Curtius relates that they sang native songs.[339] Strabo told us above that the Magians sought after a holy life; he observes also that whatever was the G.o.d to which they sacrificed they first prayed to fire.

At every sacrifice the Magians conducted the sacred rite; the victims were not slain with the knife but struck down with a club. No part of the flesh of the victim was set apart for the deity, for they declared that the G.o.d required only the soul of the animal; yet according to some they placed a small portion of the fat in the fire. "In Cappadocia there were enclosed places," Strabo continues, "in the midst of which was an altar, heaped up with ashes. On this the Magians kept up the unquenchable fire. Each day they went and sang for an hour before the fire, holding in their hands a bundle of twigs. On their heads they wore tiaras of felt, which fell down on both sides so far that the side-pieces covered the lips."[340] Pausanias, who observed the wors.h.i.+p of the Magians in the cities of Lydia, says: "At both places there was a shrine with a cell, and in the cell is an altar; on this are ashes the colour of which is not the ordinary colour of ashes. When the Magian comes into the cell, he lays the dry wood on the altar, puts the tiara on his head, and sings the invocation to some G.o.d or another, in a barbarian manner, quite unintelligible to the h.e.l.lenes; but he sings from a book. Then the pieces of wood, without being kindled, ought to become lighted, and a flame from them should flash all round the cell."[341]

FOOTNOTES:

[312] "Vend." 2, 87-89; "Yacna," 14, 4-6. If in "Yacna," 19, 46 four occupations are mentioned instead of the four orders, and artisans are added to the husbandmen, this is only another theory, which does not, however, alter the series and system; in India the order of Vaicyas comprises husbandmen, merchants, and artisans.

[313] "Vond." 8, 254.

[314] Under the Sa.s.sanids we find a chief of the husbandmen (_vactriosan_), and a chief of the warriors (_arthestaran_); Noldeke, "Tabari," s. 110.

[315] "Vend." 9, 172-180, 187-196.

[316] "Vend." 13, 126-129.