Note 127.1 — The Evolution of Religion

Another religion that is of equal value for our present purpose is the Zarathustrian. Trusting as far as we may the translation and interpretation of its sacred books, we may gather the impression from the study of them that no religion on the earth has ever been under such bondage to the cathartic ideal as this one; nor does it appear very profitable at first sight to put the question here of the influence of the idea of purity on religion, law, and morals, for the idea seems all-absorbing and these three to have no independent existence apart from it. It creates for the Mazdean believer a morality of its own, with which the secular systems have little or nothing to do. “Oh, maker of the world,” asks Zarathustra of Ahura Mazda, “can he be clean again who has eaten of the carcase of a dog or the corpse of a man?” The deity answers—“He cannot, oh holy Zarathustra.”127.1 Nor is there any purification possible for the unforgivable sin of walking about after fifteen years of age were reached without a girdle or a proper shirt: “such a one goes henceforth with power to destroy the world of righteousness.”128.1 On the other hand, the highest act of righteousness which brings forgiveness of all sins to him who performs it is the pulling down of a dakhma, the scaffold on which the corpses were hung according to the Persian system of burial, after it had served its purpose; for naturally it was a focus of impurity, and demons congregated there in swarms.128.2 And the Persian concept of purity makes its own law. As the ritual of cleansing is the prime article of the Zarathustrian code, so the sacrilegious cleanser, that is, the amateur who tried to purify another without knowledge of the Mazdean ceremonies, brought sterility upon the land and was punished with death.128.3 And death was the penalty for him who dared to carry a corpse alone, for the dead body spread around the contagion of a myriad “drugs” or demons, and two men at least must set hand to it to prevent an intolerable epidemic of impurity.129.1 Legislation in the Zend-Avesta is merciless beyond any recorded code; we must suppose that it was mainly idle thunder, or Persia would have been depopulated. The whole universe of Mazdeism is permeated with these cathartic ideas, and a secular or physical view of things scarcely glimmers through: the ritual order dominated what we call the material as well as the spiritual world; the sun, moon, and stars are purified by the Word. On this basis arose a religion of great exaltation and a religious fervour of rare intensity: and the sacred books of Persia are of great value for the present inquiry, for they show us more clearly than any other record the spiritual concept of the pure heart emerging from the ritualistic idea; while it is often hard in any particular text to distinguish between the lower and the higher significance. When God speaks to the prophet thus—“Purity is for man, next to life, the highest good: that purity, O Zarathustra, that is in the religion of Mazda for him who cleanses himself with good thoughts, words, and deeds,”130.1 we believe we have reached a high ethical conception; but the phrase is supposed by Darmesteter to refer to him who cleanses himself according to the prescriptions of the law. Yet in their cathartic code were the germs of an advanced morality, and truthfulness and chastity were fostered by it.130.2 The lustrations were partly of the primitive type, taken over, as usual, from a lower stratum of religion; their most interesting features are the cleansing words that accompanied them, which were not usually prayers but spells, formulæ of magic potency, but drawn from a high religion, such as these, for instance:—“The will of the Lord is the Law of Righteousness”; “Holiness is the best of all Good: it is also Happiness.”131.1 Even the virtue of philanthropy is given cathartic value in a spell-formula, “he who relieves the poor makes Ahura King,” recited before the person was washed with the holy water of Mazda and the “gômêz” of an ox.131.2