Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

ii8 HISTORY OF PERSIA
Again, the purity and loftiness of conception
of Ahura
Mazda, as preached by Zoroaster, exceeds that of Yahveh,
the tribal god of Israel, who is represented as exclaiming,
'* If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on
judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will
reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk
with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." ^ What a
terrible, nay ferocious, is god this ! On the other hand,
the God whose sublime nature is depicted in the lofty
passages of Isaiah surpasses the highest conception of
Ahura Mazda.
We now come to a still more important question. It
is perhaps going too far to claim that the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul was first preached by Zoroaster
and adopted by the Hebrews, who were placed by Sargon
II. " in the cities of the Medes " as they disappeared
and were lost to Israel. We do, however, know that the
priestly and aristocratic families of the Jews, represented
by the Sadducees, held, at the beginning of the Christian
era, that there was nothing in the Scriptures to warrant the
belief in
angel, spirit, or resurrection. Thus we have, on
the one hand, the Zoroastrians, with whom the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul was a fundamental article
of belief, and, on the other, the Jews divided among
themselves on this vital doctrine six centuries after the
death of the great Prophet of Iran. Space forbids me to
enlarge
further on the immense influence which Zoroastri-
anism must have had, both directly and indirectly, on
Judaism : even if it was not the pure religion of Zoroaster,
it was undoubtedly an influence which tended to the dis-
couragement of the idea of the tribal god and to the
strengthening of the grand ideal of a god of all nations.
It remains to point out that the tone of the Hebrew
prophets towards the Persians is remarkable, and, to give
a single example out of many, we read in Isaiah, " Thus
saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus." Indeed, the
Persians are never doomed to Hell ; and are to some
extent recognized by the Hebrews as a people whose
religion
was akin to their own.
^
Deuteronomy xxxii. 4.1-42.