A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumesRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Free thought -- History
The Mazdean system, or worship of Ahura Mazda (Ormazd), of which we
find in Herodotos positive historical record as an anti-idolatrous
and nominally monotheistic creed [210] in the fifth century B.C., is
the first to which these aspects can be ascribed with certainty. As
the Jews are found represented in the Book of Jeremiah [211] (assumed
to have been written in the sixth century B.C.) worshipping numerous
Gods with images: and as polytheistic and idolatrous practices are
still described in the Book of Ezekiel [212] (assumed to have been
written during or after the Babylonian Captivity), it is inadmissible
to accept the unauthenticated writings of ostensibly earlier prophets
as proving even a propaganda of monotheism on their part, the so-called
Mosaic law being known to be in large part of late invention and of
Babylonian derivation. [213] In any case, the mass of the people were
clearly image-worshippers. The Persians, on the other hand, can be
taken with certainty to have had in the sixth century an imageless
worship (though images existed for other purposes), with a supreme
God set above all others. The Magian or Mazdean creed, as we have
seen, was not very devoutly held by Cyrus; but Dareios a generation
later is found holding it with zeal; and it cannot have grown in a
generation to the form it then bore. It must therefore be regarded as
a development of the religion of some section of the "Iranian" race,
centering as it does round some deities common to the Vedic Aryans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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