"I believe in the existence, the purity, and the indubitable truth of the good Mazdayaçna faith, and in the Creator Ormazd and the Amschaspands, in the exaction of an account, and in the resurrection of the new body. I remain in this faith, and confess that it is not to be doubted, as Ormazd imparted it to Zertuscht, Zertuscht to Fraschaostra and Jâmâçp, as Âderbât, the son of Mahresfand, ordered and purified it, as the just Paoiryotkaeshas and the Deçtûrs in family succession have brought it to us, and I thence am acquainted with it" (Av., vol. iii. p. 218.—Khorda-Avesta, xlv. 28).
In more than one respect this confession is interesting.
First, it asserts the excellence and the unquestionable infallibility
of the traditional faith in terms which a Catholic could
hardly improve upon. Secondly, it brings before us in succinct
form the leading points included in that faith—the Creator, at
the head of all the created world; the seven Amshaspands or
Amesha-Çpentas, heavenly powers of whom Ormazd himself
was chief; the judgment to be expected after death, and the
strict account then to be required; lastly, the general resurrection
with its new body. Proceeding next to the manner in
which this faith had been handed down from generation to
generation, we have first the cardinal doctrine that God himself
was the direct teacher of his prophet; after that, a statement
that the prophet communicated it to others, from whom it
descended to still later followers, one of whom is declared to
have "ordered and purified it." Thus the consciousness of
subsequent additions to the original law is betrayed. Thus
amended, the priests, or Deçtûrs, are said to have transmitted
it to the time of the speaker, the authority of the ecclesiastical
order in the interpretation of the sacred records being thus
carefully maintained.
How many generations had elapsed before the transmission of the law could thus become the subject of deliberate incorporation among recognized dogmas, it is impossible to say. Undoubtedly, however, we stand a long way off—not only in actual time, but in modes of thought and forms of worship—from the ancient Iranian prophet. The change from the faith of Peter to that of St. Augustine is not greater than that from the faith of Zarathustra's rude disciples to that of the subtle,
