Identifier: cu31924091762140 (find matches)
Title: History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Maspero, G. (Gaston), 1846-1916 Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry), 1845-1933
Subjects: Civilization, Ancient History, Ancient
Publisher: London : Grolier Society
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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hat of thepriests who handed down their religious tradition underthe various dynasties, native or foreign, who bore ruleover Iran. The Creator was described as the whole circle of the 1 Renan defined the Avesta as the Code of a very small religious sect;it is a Talmud, a book of casuistry and strict observance. I have difficultyin believing that the great Persian empire, which, at least in religiousmatters, professed a certain breadth of ideas, could have had a law so strict.I think, that had the Persians possessed a sacred book of this description,the Greeks must have mentioned it. 12 THE IRANIAN CONQUEST heavens, the most steadfast among the gods, for heclothes himself with the solid vault of the firmament ashis raiment, the most beautiful, the most intelligent, hewhose members are most harmoniously proportioned; hisbody was the light and the sovereign glory, the sun andthe moon were his eyes. The theologians had graduallyspiritualised the conception of this deity without absolutely
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THE AHUEA-MAZDA OF THE BAS-EELIEFS OF PEESEPOLIS.^ disconnecting him from the material universe. He re-mained under ordinary circumstances invisible to mortaleyes, and he could conceal his identity even from thehighest gods, but he occasionally manifested himself inhuman form. He borrowed in such case from Assyria thesymbol of Assur, and the sculptors depict him with theupper part of his body rising above that winged diskwhich is carved in a hovering attitude on the pediments ofAssyrian monuments or stelae. In later days he was 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Flandin and Coste.

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