This great consummation is also intimated by the fact that in the same Fargard of the Vendidad (XIX. 18) the future restorer or saviour is mentioned, Sosioch (Caoshyanc), who is expected by the Parsis to come at the end of all things, and accomplish the resurrection, and introduce a kingdom of untroubled happiness.[148] Whether the resurrection belongs to the primitive form of the religion remains as doubtful, but also as probable, as when Mr. Alger discussed the whole question in his admirable monograph on the Doctrine of the Future Life.  Our remaining fragments of the Zend Avesta say nothing of the periods of three thousand years’ duration.  Two or three passages in the Avesta refer to the resurrection.[149] But the conflict between Ormazd and Ahriman, the present struggle between good and evil, the ideal world of the Fravashis and good spirits,—­these unquestionably belong to the original belief.

Sec. 10.  Relation of this System to Christianity.  The Kingdom of Heaven.

Of this system we will say, in conclusion, that in some respects it comes nearer to Christianity than any other.  Moreover, though so long dead, like the great nation of which it was the inspiration and life,—­though swept away by Mohammedanism,—­its influence remains, and has permeated both Judaism and Christianity.  Christianity has probably received from it, through Judaism, its doctrine of angels and devils, and its tendency to establish evil in the world as the permanent and equal adversary of good.  Such a picture as that by Retzsch of the Devil playing chess with the young man for his soul, such a picture as that by Guido of the conflict between Michael and Satan, such poems as Milton’s Paradise Lost and Goethe’s Faust, could perhaps never have appeared in Christendom, had it not been for the influence of the system of Zoroaster on Jewish, and, through Jewish, on Christian thought.  It was after the return from Babylon that the Devil and demons, in conflict with man, became a part of the company of spiritual beings in the Jewish mythology.  Angels there were before, as messengers of God, but devils there were not; for till then an absolute Providence ruled the world, excluding all interference of antagonistic powers.  Satan, in Job, is an angel of God, not a devil; doing a low kind of work, indeed, a sort of critical business, fault-finding, and looking for flaws in the saints, but still an angel, and no devil.  But after the captivity the horizon of the Jewish mind enlarged, and it took in the conception of God as allowing freedom to man and angels, and so permitting bad as well as good to have its way.  And then came in also the conception of a future life, and a resurrection for ultimate judgment.  These doctrines have been supposed, with good reason, to have come to the Jews from the influence of the great system of Zoroaster.