=7.= The popular expression ‘magic’ still recalls to us the system of which the Magi of Persia were the professed exponents, and of which the Romans had a knowledge which is to a large extent confirmed from other sources. This system we shall here call ‘Persism,’ in order to free ourselves of the popular associations still connected with such terms as Magism, Parsee-ism, and so forth; meaning by ‘Persism’ the teaching of Zarathustra (the Latin Zoroastres) as it affected the Greek and Latin world. Persism has its roots in the older nationalism, inasmuch as its deity is one who takes sides with his believer and brings him victory in war; but on the other hand it grows into a world-religion because that which begins as a conflict between races gradually changes into a struggle between right and wrong. It is based also on the Chaldaean system, in so far as it looks up to the heaven as the object of human reverence and to the sun, moon and planets as at least the symbols of human destiny; but here again the outlook is transformed, for in the place of impersonal and inexorable forces we find a company of celestial beings, intimately concerned in the affairs of men, and engaged in an ardent struggle for the victory of the better side. The meaning of Persism and its immense influence on the Greco-Roman world are still so little realized that it is necessary here to deal with the subject with some fulness. [Sidenote: Zarathustra.] =8.= The Greeks and Romans refer to the teachings of Zarathustra as of immemorial antiquity[14]; whilst on the other hand the direct Persian tradition (existing in a written form from about the year 800 A.D.) ascribes them to a date 258 years before the era of Alexander’s invasion of Persia[15]. The best modern authorities incline to the Persian view, thus giving the date of about 600 B.C. to Zarathustra, and making him roughly a contemporary of the Buddha and Confucius[16]. On the other hand considerations, partly of the general history of religion, partly of the linguistic and metrical character of such fragments of Zarathustra’s writings as still remain, indicate a date earlier than this by many hundred years[17]. Zarathustra belonged to the tribe of the Magi, who maintained religious practices of which the nature can only be inferred from such of them as survived the prophet’s reforms[18]; in their general character they cannot have differed widely from those recorded in the Rigveda. In the midst of this system Zarathustra came forward as a reformer. He was deeply learned in the doctrines of the Chaldaeans[19], and was an ardent student of astronomy[20]. In a period of solitary contemplation in the desert[21], it was revealed to him that a great and wise being, named Ahura Mazdā, was the creator and ruler of heaven and earth[22]. Upon him attend Angels who do him service; whilst the spirit of Mischief and his attendants ceaselessly work to oppose his purposes. Ahura is the light, his enemy is the darkness[23].