us, [12] "rejects the use of temples,
of altars, and of statues, and smiles at the folly of those nations who
imagine that the gods are sprung from, or bear any affinity with, the
human nature. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen
for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme
God, who fills the wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are
addressed." Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist,
he accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the Sun
and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the charge, and
explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear to give a color to
it. The elements, and more particularly Fire, Light, and the Sun, whom
they called Mithra, [1201] were the objects of their religious reverence,
because they considered them as the purest symbols, the noblest
productions, and the most powerful agents of the Divine Power and
Nature. [13]

[Footnote 12: Herodotus, l. i. c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux
thinks, with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted
in the Magian religion. Note: The Pyraea, or fire temples of the
Zoroastrians, (observes Kleuker, Persica, p. 16,) were only to be
found in Media or Aderbidjan, provinces into which Herodotus did not
penetrate.--M.]

[Footnote 1201: Among the Persians Mithra is not the Sun: Anquetil has
contested and triumphantly refuted the opinion of those who confound
them, and it is evidently contrary to the text of the Zendavesta. Mithra
is the first of the genii, or jzeds, created by Ormuzd; it is he who
watches over all nature. Hence arose the misapprehension of some of the
Greeks, who have said that Mithra was the summus deus of the Persians:
he has a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The Chaldeans appear to
have assigned him a higher rank than the Persians. It is he who bestows
upon the earth the light of the sun. The sun. named Khor, (brightness,)
is thus an inferior genius, who, with many other genii, bears a part
in the functions of Mithra. These assistant genii to another genius are
called his kamkars; but in the Zendavesta they are never confounded. On
the days sacred to a particular genius, the Persian ought to recite, not
only the prayers addressed to him, but those also which are addressed to
his kamkars; thus the hymn or iescht of Mithra is recited on the day of
the sun, (Khor,) and vice versa. It is probably this which has sometimes
caused th