Ahriman, and from the character of the struggle between Indra
and Vritra, and again between Ormuzd and Ahriman, we infer that a myth,
purely _physical_, in the land of the Five Streams, assumed a moral and
spiritual meaning in Persia, and the fight between the co-ordinate
powers of good and evil, _gave birth to the dualism which from that time
to the present has exercised so mighty an influence through the East and
West_.

The Apocalypse exhibits Satan with the physical attributes of Ahriman;
he is called the "dragon," the "old serpent," who fights against God and
his angels. The _Vedic myth_, transformed and exaggerated in the Iranian
books, _finds its way through this channel_ into Christianity. The idea
thus introduced was that of the struggle between Satan and Michael,
which ended in the overthrow of the former, and the casting forth of all
his hosts out of heaven, but it coincides too nearly with a myth spread
in countries held by all the Aryan nations to avoid further
modification. Local tradition substituted St. George or St. Theodore for
Jupiter, Apollo, Hercules, or Perseus. It is under this disguise that
the Vedic myth has come down to our own times, and has still its
festivals and its monuments. Art has consecrated it in a thousand ways.
St. Michael, lance in hand, treading on the dragon, is an image as
familiar now as, _thirty centuries ago_, that of Indra treading under
foot the demon Vritra could possibly have been to the Hindoo.[561:1]

The very ancient doctrine of a TRINITY, three gods in one, can be
explained, rationally, by allegory only. We have seen that the Sun, in
early times, was believed to be the _Creator_, and became the first
object of adoration. After some time it would be observed that this
powerful and beneficent agent, the solar fire, was the most potent
_Destroyer_, and hence would arise the first idea of a Creator and
Destroyer united in the same person. But much time would not elapse
before it must have been observed, that the destruction caused by this
powerful being was destruction only in appearance, that destruction was
only reproduction in another form--_regeneration_; that if he appeared
sometimes to destroy, he constantly repaired the injury which he seemed
to occasion--and that, without his light and heat, everything would
dwindle away into a cold, inert, unprolific mass. Thus, at once, in the
same being, became concentrated, the creating, the preserving, and the
destroying pow