e Mithraic cult was carried out with a variety of imposing ceremonies.
Similar temples to the moon existed in many places; and the images of
the Arsacidae were associated with those of the sun and moon gods,
in the sanctuaries dedicated to them. The precepts of Zoroaster were
forgotten. The sacred compositions which bore that sage's name, and had
been handed down from a remote antiquity, were still indeed preserved,
if not in a written form, yet in the memory of the faithful few who
clung to the old creed; but they had ceased to be regarded as binding
upon their consciences by the great mass of the Western Asiatics.
Western Asia was a seething-pot, in which were mixed up a score of
contradictory creeds, old and new, rational and irrational, Sabaism,
Magism, Zoroastrianism, Grecian polytheism, teraphim-worship, Judaism,
Chaldae mysticism, Christianity. Artaxerxes conceived it to be his
mission to evoke order out of this confusion, to establish in lieu of
this extreme diversity an absolute uniformity of religion.

The steps which he took to effect his purpose seem to have been the
following. He put down idolatry by a general destruction of the images,
which he overthrew and broke to pieces. He raised the Magian hierarchy
to a position of honor and dignity such as they had scarcely enjoyed
even under the later Achaemenian princes, securing them in a condition
of pecuniary independence by assignments of lands, and also by
allowing their title to claim from the faithful the tithe of all their
possessions. He caused the sacred fire to be rekindled on the altars
where it was extinguished, and assigned to certain bodies of priests the
charge of maintaining the fire in each locality. He then proceeded to
collect the supposed precepts of Zoroaster into a volume, in order
to establish a standard of orthodoxy whereto he might require all to
conform. He found the Zoroastrians themselves divided into a number
of sects. Among these he established uniformity by means of a "general
council," which was attended by Magi from all parts of the empire, and
which settled what was to be regarded as the true Zoroastrian faith.
According to the Oriental writers, this was effected in the following
way: Forty thousand, or, according to others, eighty thousand Magi
having assembled, they were successively reduced by their own act to
four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and finally to seven, the most
highly respected for their piety and learning