mazdeism

Updated: May 3, 2025

Those who have refused to worship beings hitherto deemed gods, on the ground that they ought not to be worshipped and are not truly gods, cannot but desire to bring the worship of such beings entirely to an end, and to make the worship of the true God prevail instead, by rude or by gentle means, as the stage of civilisation may in each case suggest. Growth of Mazdeism.

Allan Menzies - History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems

Throughout the Middle Ages nothing was known of Mazdeism but the name of its founder, who from a Magus was converted into a magician and master of the hidden sciences. It was not until the Renaissance that real inquiry was resumed. The first step was to collect all the information that could be gathered from Greek and Roman writers.

- Sacred Books of the East

In the hierarchy of Mazdeism, the seven marouts, or genii of the winds, the seven amschaspands; then among the Aryans and their descendants, the seven horses that drew the chariot of the sun, the seven apris or shape of the flame, the seven rays of Agni, the seven manons or criators of the Vedas; among the Hebrews, the seven days of the creation, the seven lamps of the ark and of Zacharias’s vision, the seven branches of the golden candlestick, the seven days of the feast of the dedication of the temple of Solomon, the seven years of plenty, the seven years of famine; in the Christian dispensation, the seven churches with the seven angels at their head, the seven golden candlesticks, the seven seals of the book, the seven trumpets of the angels, the seven heads of the beast that rose from the sea, the seven vials full of the wrath of God, the seven last plagues of the Apocalypse; in the Greek mythology, the seven heads of the hydra, killed by Hercules, etc.

Augustus Le Plongeon - Vestiges of the Mayas : or, Facts Tending to Prove that Communications and Intimate : Relations Must Have Existed, in very Remote Times, Between : the Inhabitants of Mayab and Those of Asia and Africa

This, of course, does not prove that he was not believed in; when the Jewish prophet proclaims that Jehovah makes both light and darkness, that he both wounds and heals, there may be a reference to Persian dualism. Yet Mazdeism was capable of appearing, and did appear to the foreigner, as a lofty worship of a god of light and goodness.

Allan Menzies - History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems