e many explicit references to many ancient Zoroastrian books
no longer in existence. For example, the Parsees have a very early
account that the Avesta at first consisted of twenty one Nosks. Of
these but one has been preserved complete, and small parts of
three or four others. The rest are utterly wanting. The fifth
Nosk, whereof not any portion remains to us, was called the Do az
ah Hamast. It contained thirty two chapters, treating, among other
things, "of the upper and nether world, of the resurrection, of
the bridge Chinevad, and of the fate after death." 27 If this
evidence be true, and we know of no reason for not crediting it,
it is perfectly decisive. But, at all events, the absence from the
extant parts of the Zend Avesta of the doctrine under examination
would be no proof that that doctrine was not received when those
documents were penned.

Secondly, we have the unequivocal assertion of Theopompus, in the
fourth century before Christ, that the Magi taught the doctrine of
a general resurrection.28 "At the appointed epoch Ahriman shall be
subdued," and "men shall live again and shall be immortal." And
Diogenes adds, "Eudemus of Rhodes affirms the same things."
Aristotle calls Ormuzd Zeus, and Ahriman Haides, the Greek names
respectively of the lord of the starry Olympians above, and the
monarch of the Stygian ghosts beneath. Another form also in which
the early Greek authors betray their acquaintance with the Persian
conception of a conflict between Ormuzd and Ahriman is in the
idea expressed by Xenophon in his Cyropadia, in the dialogue
between Araspes and Cyrus of two souls in man, one a brilliant
efflux of good, the other a dusky emanation of evil, each bearing
the likeness of its parent.29 Since we know from Theopompus that
certain conceptions, illustrated in the Bundehesh and not
contained in the fragmentary Avestan books which have reached us,
were actually received Zoroastrian

25 Studien uber das Zend Avesta, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 1855, band ix. s. 192.

26 Spiegel, Avesta, band i. s. 16.

27 Dabistan, vol. i. pp. 272-274.

28 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, Introduction,
sect. vi. Plutarch, concerning Isis and Osiris.

29 Lib. vi. cap. i. sect. 41.

tenets four centuries before Christ, we are strongly supported in
giving credence to the doctrinal statements of that book as
affording, in spite of its lateness, a correct epitome of the old