We next must call attention to the fact that the Jews were conquered by the Babylonians, and enslaved in Mesopotamia for very many years--that they were subsequently emancipated by the Medo-Persians, and that the latter, whom from the inscription of Darius we believe to have been devout, permitted and even encouraged the Israelites to entertain the faith which they then held, and even assisted them to rebuild their temple. This permission, and the friendliness of Nehemiah with the Median monarch, seem to show a great similarity, if not an identity, between the Persian and the Jewish creeds. If, then, we could frame any definite idea of the tenets held by the Jews before they came into contact with the Babylonians, and those which they professed afterwards, we might form a conception of what they got from the Chaldees, the Medes, and the Persians respectively. Without going very deeply into the matter, we may say that Hebrew scholars generally allow that the ideas of Satan--a power opposed to that of God, and of angels or spirits, were introduced between the captivity and the period when the scriptures were translated into Greek, and that the notion of a future life and the resurrection of the dead, was developed after the time of the Septuagint, about b.c. 277. From the preceding considerations we draw the inference that the idea of the resurrection of the dead, of a future state of existence, in which each will be punished or rewarded for what had been done by him in his mortal condition, was not a portion of the original Median, Persian, Babylonian, or Jewish religion. A mass of circumstantial evidence has led me to believe that the idea of a Heaven for the good and a Hell for the bad, came from those who professed what we will call the Vedic or the Buddhist faith. If, in reply to this, it is alleged that it may have come from the Greeks directly, the rejoinder is simply this--that the Grecians, as Aryan colonists, brought with them only a rude notion of a futurity, which they were the medium of improving, when, through the influence of their arts and arms, they opened a highway to India both by sea and land. Those who could import into their armies such huge beasts as elephants, could far more readily import a new article of faith, if it pleased the priests. If our reasoning is sound, we cannot, I think, regard the Avesta as a trustworthy exposition of the ancient teaching of Zoroaster. On the other hand, we must, in my opinion, consider it as a book fabricated to serve a particular purpose. In this respect it resembles our own Bible, which was composed for the glorification of the Hebrews when smarting under a series of ignominious defeats and enslavements; and then enlarged, contracted, or altered, to suit emergencies. The following table will assist the reader to compare or contrast the religion of the Medo-Persians with that of the Hebrews in some matters:-- [Illustration: 285] [Illustration: 286]