ior to
the reign of the first Sassanid have been relinquished as futile.[125]
Doellinger[126] thinks he may have been "somewhat later than Moses, perhaps
about B.C. 1300," but says, "it is impossible to fix precisely" when he
lived. Rawlinson[127]| merely remarks that Berosus places him anterior to
B.C. 2234. Haug is inclined to date the Gathas, the oldest songs of the
Avesta, as early as the time of Moses.[128] Rapp,[129] after a thorough
comparison of ancient writers, concludes that Zoroaster lived B.C. 1200 or
1300. In this he agrees with Duncker, who, as we have seen, decided upon
the same date. It is not far from the period given by the oldest Greek
writer who speaks of Zoroaster,--Xanthus of Sardis, a contemporary of
Darius. It is the period given by Cephalion, a writer of the second
century, who takes it from three independent sources. We have no sources
now open to us which enable us to come nearer than this to the time in
which he lived.

Nor is anything known with certainty of the place where he lived or the
events of his life. Most modern writers suppose that he resided in
Bactria. Haug maintains that the language of the Zend books is
Bactrian[130]. A highly mythological and fabulous life of Zoroaster,
translated by Anquetil du Perron, called the Zartusht-Namah[131],
describes him as going to Iran in his thirtieth year, spending twenty
years in the desert, working miracles during ten years, and giving lessons
of philosophy in Babylon, with Pythagoras as his pupil. All this is based
on the theory (now proved to be false) of his living in the time of
Darius. "The language of the Avesta," says Max Muller, "is so much more
primitive than the inscriptions of Darius, that many centuries must have
passed between the two periods represented by these two strata of
language[132]." These inscriptions are in the Achaemenian dialect, which
is the Zend in a later stage of linguistic growth.

Sec. 5. Spirit of Zoroaster and of his Religion

It is not likely that Zoroaster ever saw Pythagoras or even Abraham. But
though absolutely nothing is known of the events of his life, there is not
the least doubt of his existence nor of his character. He has left the
impress of his commanding genius on great regions, various races, and long
periods of time. His religion, like that of the Buddha, is essentially a
moral religion. Each of them was a revolt from the Pantheism of India, in
the interest of morality, human freedom, an