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Updated: May 13, 2025
Evidently, the Jews and Arians, when they became known to one another, recognized mutually the fact that they were worshippers of the same great Being. Hence the favor of the Persians towards the Jews, and the fidelity of the Jews towards the Persians. The Lord God of the Jews being recognized as identical with Ormazd, a sympathetic feeling united the peoples.
The inquiries which Aristotle caused to be made, towards the very close of the Empire, into the true nature of the Persian Religion, showed him Ormazd and Ahriman still recognized as Principles, still standing in the same hostile and antithetical attitude, one towards the other, which they occupied when the first Fargard of the Vendidad was written, long anterior to the rise of the Persian Power.
He was often associated with Ormazd, as if an equal, though a real equality was probably not intended. He was "great," "pure," "imperishable," "the beneficent protector of all creatures," and "the beneficent preserver of all creatures." He had a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes.
Persian worship, in these early times, was doubtless that enjoined by the Zendavesta, comprising prayer and thanksgiving to Ormazd and the good spirits of his creation, the recitation of Gathas or hymns, the performance of sacrifice, and participation in the Soma ceremony. Of the character of these buildings we can say nothing.
Some further representations of Ormazd occur in the Sassanian sculptures; but Ahriman seems not to be portrayed elsewhere. Ormazd appears on foot in a relief of the Great Arta-xerxes, which contains two figures only, those of himself and his divine patron.
He is called, in a very special sense, "the friend of Ormazd," and is employed by Ormazd not only to distribute his gifts, but also to conduct to him the souls of the faithful, when this life is over, and they enter on the celestial scene. Armaiti is at once the genius of the Earth, and the goddess of Piety.
We have explained all these in our books already cited with quotations of portions regarding the miracles of Zoroaster, the marks and the proof of his revelation, the belief in the five eternal principles which are Ormazd or God, Ahriman which is the same as Satan, the wicked, Kah or time, Jay or space, Homa or the good spirituous liquor, the grounds on which they support these doctrines, the reasons why they render homage to the two luminaries and to other heavenly lights, the distinction which they make between fire and light, their discourses regarding the origin of the human species, on Mashya son of Gayomert, and Mashyana his daughter, and how the Persians trace their geneologies back to these two personages, and finally, other things connected with the exercise of their religion, the practice of their cult and the various places where they have established their fire sanctuaries.
Then they proceeded joyfully onward to the presence of Ormazd, to the immortal saints, to the golden throne, to paradise. As for the wicked, when they fell into the gulf, they found themselves in outer darkness, in the kingdom of Ahriman, where they were forced to remain and to feed on poisoned banquets.
Originally set upon the earth by Ormazd in order to maintain the good creation, he was liable to the continual temptations and seductions of the divs or devas, who were "wicked, bad, false, untrue, the originators of mischief, most baneful, destructive, the basest of all things."
Under the great Ormazd were a number of subordinate deities, the principal of whom were Mithra and Serosh, Mithra, the Sun-God, had been from a very early date an object of adoration in Persia, only second to Ormazd. The Achaemenian kings joined him occasionally with Ormazd in their invocations. In processions his chariot, drawn by milk-white horses, followed closely on that of Ormazd.
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