law, of which he will
bring the 22d portion.

"The second posthumous son of Zoroaster is Oschedermah. He will appear
four hundred years after Oschederbami. He will stop the sun twenty days
and twenty nights, and he will bring the 23d part of the law, and the
third part of the world will be converted.

"The third is named Sosiosch. He will be born at the end of the ages.
He will bring the 24th part of the law; he will stay the sun thirty
days and thirty nights, and the whole earth will embrace the law of
Zoroaster. After him will be the resurrection."(123) This last named
son was to be born of a pure and spotless virgin, whereupon a star would
appear blazing even at noonday with undiminished lustre.

123) Quoted by Waite, History of the Christian Religion, p. 168.

"You, my sons," exclaimed the seer, "will perceive its rising before any
other nation. As soon, therefore, as you shall behold the star, follow
it, withersoever it shall lead you; and adore that mysterious child,
offering your gifts to him, with profound humility. He is the Almighty
Word, which created the heavens."(124)

124) Ibid., 169.

Waite notices the conclusion of Faber that this prediction was long
before the birth of Christ, and states that one of the reasons for
such a conclusion was, that in the old Irish history a similar prophecy
appears--a prophecy which was delivered by a "Druid of Bokhara." The
identity of this Irish prophecy with the one in the East ascribed to
Zarathustra or Zoroaster, is so singular that Faber thinks it can be
accounted for only on the hypothesis "of an ancient emigration from
Persia to Ireland by the northwest passage, which carried the legend
with it."

By those who have investigated the origin of the early gospels, it is
stated that the story of the Magi and the star appeared in the Gospel
of the Infancy early in the second century, and was subsequently
incorporated into the preparatory chapters of Luke and Matthew.
According to Waite, there was a sect of Christians called Prodiceans
whose leader, Prodicus, about A.D. 120, boasted that they had the sacred
books of Zoroaster. From an extant fragment of the Chronography of
Africanus is the following:

"Christ first of all became known from Persia. For nothing escapes the
learned jurists of that country, who investigated all things with the
utmost care. The facts, therefore, which are inscribed upon the golden
plates, and laid up in the royal tem