The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

PERSIA. 155
tance attached by the Persians to their peculiar ethics
and the rigor with which they observed its precepts,
are perhaps the most striking features of their national
character as manifested in history. They were a race
of conquerors subject to a severe discipline, like the
Romans, and like them they realized the necessity of
discipline in the administration of a vast empire. Cer
tain affinities between the two imperial nations con
nected them directly without the mediation of the
Greek world. Mazdaism brought long
awaited satis
faction to the old-time Roman desire for a practical
religion that would subject the individual to a rule of
conduct and contribute to the welfare of the stated
Mithra infused a new vigor into the paganism of the
Occident by introducing the imperative ethics of Per
sia.
Unhappily the text of the Mithraic decalogue has
not been preserved and its principal commandments
can be restored only by implication.
Mithra, the ancient spirit of light, became the god
of truth and justice in the religion of Zoroaster and
retained that character in the Occident. He was the
Macdean Apollo, but while Hellenism, with a finer
appreciation of beauty, developed the esthetic qualities
in Apollo, the Persians, caring more for matters of
conscience, emphasized the moral character in Mithra.* 8
The Greeks, themselves little scrupulous in that re
spect, were struck by the abhorrence in which their
Oriental neighbors held a lie. The Persians conceived
of Ahriman as the embodiment of deceit. Mithra
was always the god invoked as the guarantor of faith
and protector of the inviolability of contracts. Ab
solute fidelity to his oath had to be a cardinal virtue