Ar first sight it would seem that to dwell upon the final or resurrection condition of the Zoroastrian Adam would be to turn away from the consideration of his genesis, and to be regarding the creation legend of the Parsis through lenses that invert.

But if we follow the Aryan belief that earth life, when spiritually regarded, is related to eternal life as but an episode of sleep or dream, then either side of that shadowy period must equally be the fringe of the true state from which all our so-called protoplasm draws its essential vitality. Under such an aspect, birth and death alike are rifts in the veil which

Covers us;

and the difference

between them is only in the direction of the soul's passage-whether into or out from the umbrageous avenue of mortality.

If, notwithstanding our very natural and wholesome prejudices in favour of the existence in which we are called to manifest ourselves in the all-important present, the now hidden life be the sphere from which proceeds that magic quality which bids chemical atoms uprise in organic force and beauty; and if, as contradistinguished from the seventy years journey in the caravan whose protection we have found temporarily serviceable, the unrealised dream state be the abiding and virtual life; then the ideal or standard man of any complete philosophy of creation, whether entering upon his perigee or apogee, must represent the strength and

character of that more truly substantial life, in archetypal mintage undefaced, or as near thereto as may be attained, and he must be pre-eminent in earthly uses as well.

Kaiômart, or the pure man, as manifested in the Aryan books, is represented as the summit of the animal creation, differentiated from the lower degrees by his upright carriage, his articulate speech, his response to the mind of the Heavenly Supreme. He retains his hold upon essential life, perhaps in the continued consciousness of relation to his angelic counterpart. His pre-eminence of type is declared by his being described as the white man par excellence. This attribute of the arch-natural man was, no doubt, a mark of high distinction in the days when the myth of creation was embodied. The tribes among whom the Aryans made their way were probably for the most part dark and degraded aborigines of a lower race than themselves. But Kaiômart, or the ideal man, was not only white and radiant; he is represented as by origin an immortal being, with eyes looking up to heaven. The liquid of life had been applied to him in creation which rendered him ever beautiful and radiant, as a spiritual being would be who could dominate this body of mortality. The prophet Zoroaster is represented in the paintings and sculptures as endowed with a nimbus, a glory or crown of radiance, which is meant to typify the shining forth of the

atmosphere that fills the world of light.

We may assume that Kaiômart was understood never to have lost the consciousness of the unity of the two worlds. That oneness, Persian writers have said, even distinguished ascetics may comprehend. To understand the theory of resurrection, as it chimes in with such views as these, and to make an intelligent analysis of the word itself as we find it in the philosophical language of Greece, it will be necessary to bear in mind a matter that is considered in Persian books as belonging to ancient lore; a doctrine, moreover, that is revived by new believers in every age. This is the belief, as summarised by the authors of the Synopsis of the Dabistan, "that a man may attain the faculty to quit and reassume his body, or to consider it as a loose garment, which he may put off at pleasure, for ascending to the world. of light, and on his return be reunited with the material elements."

It is logically manifest that these mystic passages must in a partial way be in themselves a resurrection and a new birth. If birth and death

are

entrances and exits in due form and ceremony with all one's belongings through the great portals of our mortal career, in which we are come to stay; these other movements are like unencumbered and hasty errands, to execute which one steps out unnoticed through a private door, which is either left open or the master carries the key.

There is no double evolution necessary for this, for the physical frame is quiescent, held only by life's cord of ductile gold; but the processes by which the spirit adapts itself to the degrees of the spheres or transcends from rarer to denser atmospheres, are told of only in the mazy utterances of seers themselves.

This kind of occultism is very

mischief of moonshine unto the modern mind, well swaddled as it is by that most useful mother, the physically real; but whatever may be the right and wholesome way of practical life, philosophically we have no right to ignore the bridges by men in every age held to exist between the present "solid unreality" and the regions where are

"trodden upon by noiseless angels, Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight."

Such questions must rest upon their merits. Though speaking philosophically, an earth life may be but episodical; yet it is, at least, a considerable episode and the real business during its progress. To fill out one's existence from a plane, however superior, to which one is not adjusted at the time, instead of expanding into the best capacities of the life that is present, would indeed be to turn what may be truest sunshine on its own plane into merest moonshine on another. The materialistic mind in its own purblind fashion is no doubt conscious of this truth, but forgets the fact that morbid cravings after the life withdrawn, while they may be an infringement of a true and wholesome balance, are no more so than is the equally morbid resort to a hoodwink of false science and a puerile arrogance of certainty, assumed in order that all beyond a defined horizon can be ignored.

If, by reason of our having journeyed "further from the east" to learn the mighty mechanics of the physical plane, we fail to sympathise with the dreams of our Aryan cousins, we may test the breadth of our own philosophic standing according as we fling away those beliefs as worthless with the feeble ridicule of ignorance, or accept them as contribu

tion to the large history and knowledge of man.

With this apology to the modern mind, the recital may be resumed of the Aryan theory of mortal life as contained in the sacred assurances of their ancient religion.

Kaiômart we may take to represent man in a state midway between the corporeal and the spiritual, with vision extending into both worlds. Meschia and Meschiana are drawn down more fully into matter, and are thus subjected to what may be called the Fall. In a Phoenician myth which has passed through Grecian hands a somewhat similar gradation may be found. Aion and Protogones are the first that enter mortal life. Aion discovers the art of nutriment from fruit trees, and the offspring of the pair, apparently representing ordinary mortals, are Genos and Genea. These names are but philosophic expressions. Aion is Eon, or Time; Protogonos, first born, or first parent; Genos and Genea equally denote race, family, offspring.

Kaiômart having departed this life before the production of beings of separate sex, it might naturally be supposed that he returned forthwith to his spiritual state. It is probable enough that the cycle of existence was originally understood to denote the regular course of individual life made typical; but in the development of the theory it must have become doctrinally necessary to account for the close of an epoch as well as for its beginning. Artistically speaking, the idea of a general and specific blossoming of creation, and a simultaneous resurrection into superior opportunity of life, is more pleasant and picturesque than that of the same results produced, so to speak, insensibly, by the unostentatious coming and going of individuals. And indeed that there are cycles

of human development, history tells us; therefore it is not surprising that a doctrine should have established itself of a cyclic period · bounded by a creation and a resurrection of man.

Geology would lead us to believe that our earth as a continuous abode of man is indefinitely older than is necessary far to outstretch even a number of cycles, regarded as periods between which Mother Nature was believed to pause to refresh herself, as it were, between throe and throe, each the creative act which peopled a world. Nevertheless, we shall find it easy to respect the cyclical conception of the history of man, and that without adopting literally the notion that men die out of the world at zodiacal intervals and are succeeded by a brand new race. How great civilisations fade out and are replaced by young and vigorous developments is a matter beyond the scope of the present paper.

As, in accordance with the cyclic creed, the day of resurrection approaches, the evil-doer, presumably the personification of the evil principle, is challenged to effect it. He will strive in vain; it is not in his province. But, nevertheless, the process begins. The various members which are to form man's supernal body are not drawn from earth as in the creation-they come one and all from the celestial land. It will be remembered that humanity has been regarded as moving towards the spiritual confines by the reverse process in respect of nutriment to that of creation. After abandoning, degree by degree, the diet of flesh, of milk, of fruit, and of water, man ceases to eat, and yet he does not die.

One part of the light which is with the sun will enlighten Kaiômart, the other will enlighten the rest of men. Perhaps we may read this as a poetic expression that the

first the spiritual spiritual the sub

spiritual ray reaches spiritual man. The entities now recognise stantial forms that are the fit expression of each individual, and all the immortal denizens of the world assemble together with man, who is about to assume the final body, and return to the weightiest life.

As Kaiômart was the spiritual agent of creation, so Saoshyos fulfils the corresponding function in resurrection; he is the rekindler. There are also a number of otherworld beings who assist: "the Increasers of the Days, who step forward to the maintenance of the pure world." (Yaçna XLV. 3.)

The perishable world has been a protection to the evil and the good, and, however inferior in itself, has become in its maternal office the very creation of the Supreme. But when the dividing comes, the state of the wicked, as their souls, becomes hard. But they are not like the demons, without spiritual counterparts (Fravashis); their affinity is about to appear to them in uncomely form, the very image of their souls. The true followers of Ahura-Mazda comfort themselves during the trying process— the separation of the vital powers and consciousness-by the prayers that are themselves "the creations of the first world;" that is to say, of the world they are on the way towards, designated in the same Gâthâs as "the next world." picture given is of the whole creation, "bodies together with bones, vital power and form, strength and consciousness, soul and Fravashi," subjected to the dread process, through which into the after-death state the soul's progress is pourtrayed. In the account itself it is impossible to distinguish the doctrine of a postponed and general, or simultaneous, resurrection, which nevertheless is spoken of as taking

The

place after "the long time" and being "the perfect resurrection." The soul is finding its proper food and raiment in the truths of the religious hymns; and passages which we will shortly cite will instance how the journey is understood to begin immediately.

There is a cyclic account, however, according to which the dead are resuscitated by an elixir which proceeds from the Bull and from the White Man (Kaiômart). Saoshyos gives of this elixir to all mankind, and they enter upon their immortality in a world without stain. There is some contradiction in the different developments of the legend, for it is otherwise given (Bundaheshn): "First will the bodily form of Kaiômart uprise, then that of Mashia and Mashiana, afterwards that of the rest of mankind."

The confusion between the Parsi doctrines of immediate entrance after death into the life of the spiritual world, and of a resuscitation postponed until the expiration of a cycle, which requires for its completion the decrepitude of the physical world, is particularly noteworthy for us, seeing that the same dilemma has come down into our Christian ritual. In the Order for the Burial of the Dead there is the old mistranslation of Job, "in my flesh" for "out from my flesh;" there confronts it the beautiful account of a sowing in corruption, an uprising in incorruption; there is a pæan on the delivery from the burden of the body, and on the decarnate condition which ensues, as a state in which spirits or souls "live," and not only live, but live "in joy and felicity." And yet, as if the actual possession of life, and that a life of joy and of consciousness of the indwelling of

God, were not enough to satisfy reasonable expectation, there is a superadded affirmation

of a general resurrection at the last day-a moment which, however intelligible in the primal meaning of the phrase, is traditionally regarded as marking a remote future period following upon the wreck of the globe.

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But large doctrines like these which sway great portions of humanity for thousands of years ought to be treated with respect rather than with a too hasty and merely intellectual criticism. Our forefathers the Druids, as Julius Cæsar records, wished to convince men of this as a primary truth, that souls do not die, but from one set of conditions pass after death to others; and they were confident, he says, that in this was the greatest excitation to virtue, by the lapsing of the terror of death. For those, then, whose lack of development prevents their attaining 'anastasy" in the true sense of the word; for persons who departing this life would fail of a better resurrection and, cowering back again (ab aliis transeuntes ad alios), pass into lower elements, it is perhaps well and hopeful that a belief should continue in a real spiritual consummation, postponed, but somewhile to be reached. Moreover, though humanity, being inharmonious, moves with irregularities of individualism or at most in a partial national progress, spiritual spheres having the unity of their harmony, must consummate periods of development by a movement into fuller light of God in wholeness and simultaneity; and who can tell how far the great doctrine of a specific earthly resurrection, with its general enhancement of life, may not be due to a confused spiritual memory stirring in humanity? Why there should be а favourite expectation of rejoining a body composed of a

the

familiar material substance is easily made intelligible by the consideration how difficult it is for the terrestrial mind to appreciate the vigour of transcorporeal substance, or to realise how, if the life further on appears dim and phantom-like to us, we ourselves may probably appear still more frail and clad in a ghostlike mist, in the eyes of those who live and upstand in the terrible strength of angelhood.

The following will exemplify the religious belief of the Aryans on the immediate future of the departing soul, as it concludes its own last earthly day, and enters upon its own resurrection, and its own judgment.

"Where

are those tribunals, where do they assemble, where do they come together, at which a man of the corporeal world gives account for his soul? Then answered Ahura-Mazda, After the man is dead, after the man is departed, after his going, the wicked evil-knowing Daevas do work. In the third night, after the coming and lightning of the dawn.' (Avesta, Vendidad, xIx., 89-91.)

"Zarathustra asked AhuraMazda, O Ahura-Mazda, most munificent spirit, creator of the settlements supplied with creatures, holy one! when a pious man passes away, where remains his soul that night? Then said Ahura-Mazda, It sits down near the head, chanting the Gâtha Ustavaiti, imploring blessedness. . . On this night the soul has as much joyfulness as his whole living existence comprised. Where dwells his soul the second night? [The second and third night are described as the first.] On the lapse of the third night, when the dawn appears, the soul of the pious man goes forward, recollecting itself at the perfume of plants. To him there seems a wind blowing