The celebrated Zoroaster seems to have been a personage as much mistaken, as any, who have preceded. The antients, who treated of him, have described him in the same foreign light, as they have represented Perseus, Dionusus, and Osiris. They have formed a character, which by length of time has been separated, and estranged, from the person, to whom it originally belonged. And as among the antients, there was not a proper uniformity observed in the appropriation of terms, we shall find more persons than one spoken of under the character of Zoroaster: though there was one principal, to whom it more truly related. It will be found, that not only the person originally recorded, and reverenced; but others, by whom the rites were instituted and propagated, and by whom they were in aftertimes renewed, have been mentioned under this title: Priests being often denominated from the Deity, whom they served. Of men, styled Zoroaster, the first was a deified personage, reverenced by some of his posterity, whose worship was styled Magia, and the professors of it Magi. His history is therefore to be looked for among the accounts transmitted by the antient Babylonians, and Chaldeans. They were the first people styled Magi; and the institutors of those rites, which related to Zoroaster. From them this worship was imparted to the Persians, who likewise had their Magi. And when the Babylonians sunk into a more complicated idolatry, the Persians, who succeeded to the sovereignty of Asia, renewed under their Princes, and particularly under Darius, the son of Hystaspes, these rites, which had been, in a great degree, effaced, and forgotten. That king was devoted to the religion styled Magia[936]; and looked upon it as one of his most honourable titles, to be called a professor of those doctrines. The Persians were originally named Peresians, from the Deity Perez, or Parez the Sun; whom they also worshipped under the title of [937]Zor-Aster. They were at different æras greatly distressed and persecuted, especially upon the death of their last king Yesdegerd. Upon this account they retired into Gedrosia and India; where people of the same family had for ages resided. They carried with them some shattered memorials of their religion in writing, from whence the Sadder, Shaster, Vedam, and Zandavasta were compiled. These memorials seem to have been taken from antient symbols ill understood; and all that remains of them consists of extravagant allegories and fables, of which but little now can be decyphered. Upon these traditions the religion of the Brahmins and Persees is founded.