The explanation wherewith we are furnished by our authorities is, that Mazdak claimed to authenticate his mission by the possession and exhibition of miraculous powers.  In order to impose on the weak mind of Kobad he arranged and carried into act an elaborate and clever imposture.  He excavated a cave below the fire-altar, on which he was in the habit of offering, and contrived to pass a tube from the cavern to the upper surface of the altar, where the sacred flame was maintained perpetually.  Having then placed a confederate in the cavern, he invited the attendance of Kobad, and in his presence appeared to hold converse with the fire itself, which the Persians viewed as the symbol and embodiment of divinity.  The king accepted the miracle as an absolute proof of the divine authority of the new teacher, and became thenceforth his zealous adherent and follower.

It may be readily imagined that the conversion of the monarch to such a creed was, under a despotic government, the prelude to disorders, which soon became intolerable.  Not content with establishing community of property and of women among themselves, the sectaries claimed the right to plunder the rich at their pleasure, and to carry off for the gratification of their own passions the inmates of the most illustrious harems.  In vain did the Mobeds declare that the new religion was false, was monstrous, ought not to be tolerated for an hour.  The followers of Mazdak had the support of the monarch, and this protection secured them complete impunity.  Each day they grew bolder and more numerous.  Persia became too narrow a field for their ambition, and they insisted on spreading their doctrines into the neighboring countries.  We find traces of the acceptance of their views in the distant West; and the historians of Armenia relate that in that unhappy country they so pressed their religion upon the people that an insurrection broke out, and Persia was in danger of losing, by intolerance, one of her most valued dependencies.

Vatian, the Mamigonian, who had been superseded in his office by a fresh Marzpan, bent on forcing the Armenians to adopt the new creed, once more put himself forward as his country’s champion, took arms in defence of the Christian faith, and endeavored to induce the Greek emperor, Anastasius, to accept the sovereignty of Persarmenia, together with the duty of protecting it against its late masters.  Fear of the consequences, if he provoked the hostility of Persia, caused Anastasius to hesitate; and things might have gone hardly with the unfortunate Armenians, had not affairs in Persia itself come about this time to a crisis.