but water animals to the bad, for which reason they account him happy that kills most of them.  These men, moreover, tell us a great many romantic things about these gods, whereof these are some:  They say that Oromazes, springing from purest light, and Arimanius, on the other hand, from pitchy darkness, these two are therefore at war with one another.  And that Oromazes made six gods[114], whereof the first was the author of benevolence, the second of truth, the third of justice, and the rest, one of wisdom, one of wealth, and a third of that pleasure which accrues from good actions; and that Arimanius likewise made the like number of contrary operations to confront them.  After this, Oromazes, having first trebled his own magnitude, mounted up aloft, so far above the sun as the sun itself above the earth, and so bespangled the heavens with stars.  But one star (called Sirius or the Dog) he set as a kind of sentinel or scout before all the rest.  And after he had made four-and-twenty gods more, he placed them all in an egg-shell.  But those that were made by Arimanius (being themselves also of the like number) breaking a hole in this beauteous and glazed egg-shell, bad things came by this means to be intermixed with good.  But the fatal time is now approaching, in which Arimanius, who by means of this brings plagues and famines upon the earth, must of necessity be himself utterly extinguished and destroyed; at which time, the earth, being made plain and level, there will be one life, and one society of mankind, made all happy, and one speech.  But Theopompus saith, that, according to the opinion of the Magees, each of these gods subdues, and is subdued by turns, for the space of three thousand years apiece, and that for three thousand years more they quarrel and fight and destroy each other’s works; but that at last Pluto shall fail, and mankind shall be happy, and neither need food, nor yield a shadow.[115] And that the god who projects these things doth, for some time, take his repose and rest; but yet this time is not so much to him although it seems so to man, whose sleep is but short.  Such, then, is the mythology of the Magees.”

We shall see presently how nearly this account corresponds with the religion of the Parsis, as it was developed out of the primitive doctrine of Zoroaster.[116]

Besides what was known through the Greeks, and some accounts contained in Arabian and Persian writers, there was, until the middle of the last century, no certain information concerning Zoroaster and his teachings.  But the enterprise, energy, and scientific devotion of a young Frenchman changed the whole aspect of the subject, and we are now enabled to speak with some degree of certainty concerning this great teacher and his doctrines.

Sec. 3.  Anquetil du Perron and his Discovery of the Zend Avesta.