ZOROASTER. A distinguished philosopher and reformer, whose doctrines were professed by the ancient Persians. The religion of Zoroaster was a dualism, in which the two antagonizing principles were Ormuzd and Abriman, symbols of Light and Darkness. It was a modification and purification of the old fire-worship, in which the fire became a symbol of the sun, so that it was really a species of sun-worship. Mithras, representing the sun, becomes the mediator between Ormuzd, or the principle of Darkness, and the world. Footnotes [1] "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, if it is a real advantage, follows unavoidably from the idea of God. The _best_ Being, he must _will_ the best of good things; the _wisest_, he must devise plans for that effect; the _most powerful_, he must bring it about. None can deny this."--THEO. PARKER, _Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion_, b. ii. ch. viii. p. 205. [2] "This institution of religion, like society, friendship, and marriage, comes out of a principle, deep and permanent in the heart: as humble, and transient, and partial institutions come out of humble, transient, and partial wants, and are to be traced to the senses and the phenomena of life, so this sublime, permanent, and useful institution came out from sublime, permanent, and universal wants, and must be referred to the soul, and the unchanging realities of life."--PARKER, _Discourse of Religion_, b. i. ch. i. p. 14. [3] "The sages of all nations, ages, and religions had some ideas of these sublime doctrines, though more or less degraded, adulterated and obscured; and these scattered hints and vestiges of the most sacred and exalted truths were originally rays and emanations of ancient and primitive traditions, handed down from, generation to generation, since the beginning of the world, or at least since the fall of man, to all mankind."--CHEV. RAMSAY, _Philos. Princ. of Nat. and Rev. Relig._, vol ii. p. 8. [4] "In this form, not only the common objects above enumerated, but gems, metals, stones that fell from heaven, images, carved bits of wood, stuffed skins of beasts, like the medicine-bags of the North American Indians, are reckoned as divinities, and so become objects of adoration. But in this case, the visible object, is idealized; not worshipped as the brute thing really is, but as the type and symbol of God."--PARKER, _Disc. of Relig._ b. i. ch. v. p. 50.