The People of Persia (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1799 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. RELIGION. It is well known that the ancient Persians were not, like most other nations, worshippers of images, which indeed they abominated as much as, under another religion, they now do, and as much perhaps as the Israelites themselves did. Their idols were the natural elements, and in particular the fire, as the purest and most characteristic symbol or representative of the God they worshipped. Hence their religion was free from many of the grosser absurdities, and, it may be added, from most of the viler atrocities, of which the apostle has left a most awful and striking picture in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. But it was not the less an idolatry. For, although some of the most instructed men might regard the fire only as a symbol of the Divinity, as they understood His character and attributes, it is certain that the great body of worshippers suffered their admiration to rest upon the altar fires, which they deemed sacred, without caring to penetrate the hidden meanings which the learned assigned to that worship. This superstition is not extinct. It is still cherished by those descendants of the ancient Persians who retained the old religion, and of whom almost two thousand families still linger in the country, under the name of Guebres, but who are found in greater numbers in India, to which their ancestors retired, and chiefly about Bombay, under the name of Parsees. The two centuries of subjection to the Arabian caliphs, which followed the famous battle of Nahavund, in A.d. 641, more than sufficed to establish the Mohammedan religion in Persia; and the religion which was thus established, and which prevailed for more than seven centuries in Persia, differed in no respect from that which was professed in all Moslem countr...