, there were archangels with flaming
swords, there were fairies, there were goblins, the celestial, the
poetic, the demoniac combined. Zoroasterism may or may not have had a
past, it is perhaps evident that it had a future.

An inscription chiselled in the red granite of Ekbatana describes
Ormuzd as creator of heaven and earth. In the _Veda_ the description
of Indra is identical.[12] It was applied equally to Jahveh in Judea.
But above Jahveh, Kabbalists discerned En Soph. Above Indra
metaphysicians discovered Brahma. Similarly the Persian magi found
that Ormuzd, however perfect, was not perfect enough and, from the
depths of the ideal, they disclosed Zervan Akerene, the Eternal, from
whom all things come and to whom all return.

[Footnote 12: R. V. x. 3. "Indra created heaven and earth."]

That conception is not reached in the _Avesta_. It is in the
_Bundahish_, a work which, while much later, is based on earlier
traditions, memories it may be, of antediluvian legends brought from
the summits of upper Asia by Djemschid, the fabulous Abraham of the
Persians of whom Zarathrustra was the Moses. But in default of the
Eternal, the Avesta contains pictures of enduring charm.

Among these is a highly poetic pastel that displays the soul of man
surprised in the first post-mortem ambuscades. There a figure,
beautiful or revolting, cries at him: "I am thyself, the image of
thine earthly life."

If that life has been beautiful, the soul of man, led by itself, is
conducted to heaven. Otherwise, led still by itself, it descended to
Drujo-demana, the House of Destruction, where, fed on insults and
offal, it waited till its sins were destroyed. The waiting might be
long. It was not everlasting. There was Mithra to intercede. Besides,
evil was regarded but as a shadow on the surface of things. In the
seventh epoch of creation, a period yet to be, the age which Coshyos
is to usher, the shadow will fade. The wicked, purified of their
wickedness, will be received among the blessed. Even Ahriman is to be
converted. In that definite triumph of light over darkness is the
resurrection and the life, life in Garo-demana, literally House of
Hymns, a pre-Christian heaven, yet strictly Christian, where, to the
trumpetings of angels, hosannahs are ceaselessly sung.[13]

[Footnote 13: Yasht. xxviii. 10, xxxiv. 2.]

John--or, more exactly, his homonym--was perhaps acquainted with that
idea, as he may have been with other theories that the _A