st form which is
historically known to us, postulated two independent and contending
principles--a principle of good, Ahura-Mazda, and a principle of evil,
Angro-Mainyus. These beings, who were coeternal and coequal, were
engaged in a perpetual struggle for supremacy; and the world was the
battle-field wherein the strife was carried on. Each had called into
existence numerous inferior beings, through whose agency they waged
their interminable conflict. Ahura-Mazda (Oromazdos, Ormazd) had created
thousands of angelic beings to perform his will and fight on his side
against the Evil One; and Alngro-Mainyus (Arimanius, Ahriman) had
equally on his part called into being thousands of malignant spirits to
be his emissaries in the world, to do his work, and fight his battles.
The greater of the powers called into being by Ahura-Mazda were proper
objects of the worship of man, though, of course, his main worship was
to be given to Ahura-Mazda. Angro-Mainyus was not to be worshipped, but
to be hated and feared. With this dualistic belief had been combined,
at a time not much later than that of Darius Hystaspis, an entirely
separate system, the worship of the elements. Fire, air, earth, and
water were regarded as essentially holy, and to pollute any of them
was a crime. Fire was especially to be held in honor; and it became an
essential part of the Persian religion to maintain perpetually upon the
fire-altars the sacred flame, supposed to have been originally kindled
from heaven, and to see that it never went out. Together with this
elemental worship was introduced into the religion a profound regard for
an order of priests called Magians, who interposed themselves between
the deity and the worshipper, and claimed to possess prophetic powers.
This Magian order was a priest-caste, and exercised vast influence,
being internally organized into a hierarchy containing many ranks, and
claiming a sanctity far above that of the best laymen.

Artaxerxes found the Magian order depressed by the systematic action
of the later Parthian princes, who had practically fallen away from the
Zoroastrian faith and become mere idolaters. He found the fire-altars in
ruins, the sacred flame extinguished, the most essential of the Magian
ceremonies and practices disregarded. Everywhere, except perhaps in his
own province of Persia Proper, he found idolatry established. Temples of
the sun abounded, where images of Mithra were the object of worship, and
th