BABYLON AND PERSIA

THE PROPHET OF ERAN. 27where beyond looo B.C.This date, so easily acces-.sible as to be comparatively modern in Chaldea and -Assyria, is so remote as to be virtually pre-historic in 'a land entirely devoid of monuments, and where wehave no grounds for even suppositions as to the time ;when writing was -introduced.12. This latter fact sufficiently shows how impos¬sible it is to ascertain with any degree of precision atwhat period the Avesta texts as well the Gathas as 'the later ones were written down. No manuscriptsnow extant are really ancient.According to Parsitradition, there once was a large body of sacredbooks, all indiscriminately and, beyond doubt, erro-;neously, attributed to the prophet himself.This socalledZoroastrian literature is said to have consisted, tof twenty-one books, written out on twelve thousandcowhides, (parchment), embracing every possiblebranch of religious discipline, philosophy, and sci¬ence, but to have been destroyed at the time of theconquest of Persia by the Greeks under Alexanderthe Great of Macedon, three centuries before Christ.No Greek ever persecuted any religion; but asit iswell known that Alexander, in a fit of drunken exal- 'tation after a feast, burned down Persepolis, thecapital of the vanquished Persian kings, it is,ofcourse, quite possiblethat manuscripts may haveperished in the conflagration. That an extensivesacred literature did exist at the time is partly con¬firmed by the testimony of acontemporary Greekwriter, (Hermippos), who is recorded to have cata¬logued the Zoroastrian books, and to have stated the -contents of each book.After the great fire we are'