of Buddhism. For a while intense missionary activity prevailed, the period of expansion lasting until the seventh century A.D. Then Buddhism was almost exterminated in India by the Mohammedan invasion and the renaissance of the older Hindu religion. In Ceylon, in Burma, Siam, and Tibet it is still the dominant faith; while in China and Japan, where the masses are nominally Buddhists, it has been more or less fused with the native religions. It is now again on the increase in India; and various propagandist movements have recently been organized there and in Japan among them a Young Men's Buddhist Association, modeled after the Young Men's Christian Association.

The question as to the future of Buddhism - which still probably outnumbers Christianity is of great interest. Professor Rhys-Davids declares it probable that Buddhism will again become a great power in the East. If so, in what form the later supernaturalistic or the primitive simple gospel- it would be hard to forecast. How much vitality the religion has, how well it can adapt itself to the truths of modern knowledge and absorb the contributions of other faiths and whether, therefore, it will permanently share the world with Christianity and whatever other religions stand the test of time only the future will show.1

What was the essence of Zoroastrianism?

A few words must suffice for one other great Aryan faith, before we turn to the Semitic religions. Zoroastrianism was a reform of the old Persian religion, as Buddhism was of the Hindu and Christianity of the Hebrew religion. The ancient Persians were cousins of the old Aryan Hindus, and their

1 For the question as to the future of Buddhism, see New World, vol.1, p. 89. For discussions of contemporary religious tendencies in India, see J. N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India; New World, vol. 1, p. 601; vol. 9, p. 451; American Journal of Theology, vol. 5, p. 217; vol. 13, p. 589.

gods were closely similar to the Vedic gods. But instead of becoming enervated and depressed like the dwellers in the hot and fever-swept Ganges valley, they remained a vigorous and virile people, filled, indeed, with a sense of the omnipresence of struggle, but of a struggle that was glorious, challenging, and assured of ultimate victory. Zoroaster, who lived, apparently, not long before the time of Buddha,1 was, like him, a reformer of great zeal and spirituality, very practical in his teachings, although more speculative in his bent. The Bible that contains his teachings, the Avesta (commonly called Zend-Avesta), is rather closely similar to the Vedas in language and in many of its conceptions. But an entirely different stamp has been put upon it, an entirely new direction given.2 The old pantheon is not abolished, but is subordinated to two central figures, Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd) and Angro-Mainyu (Ahriman), the Good God and the Bad God, who, with their subordinate spirits, have opposed each other from the beginning of time, and are the source, respectively, of all the good and bad in the world.

In Zoroastrianism, then, the universal polytheism of primitive religions has become a sharp dualism; the sense of vivid contrast and of struggle permeates its thought and practice. Fertile land versus desert, light versus darkness, day versus night, joy versus pain, order versus chaos, truth versus error, goodness versus sin, life versus death - the universe is divided between the two great Powers, and its history is the history of their age-long struggle. In particu

1 His date remains uncertain. Indeed, there have been many who have deemed him a wholly mythical figure. But the tendency nowadays is to accept his historicity and the traditions that place him in the seventh century B.C., or a little earlier. Cf. Professor G. F. Moore, "No serious student any longer doubts that Zoroaster was an historical person."

2 It is interesting to note in passing that the good god Deva of the Hindu religion has become a demon in Zoroastrianism. One suspects that to be because the Deva-worshipers rejected Zoroastrianism.

lar, the soul of man is the scene of conflict. By every pure thought and good deed he forwards the cause of Ormuzd, by every weakness and sin he aids the powers of darkness. No man liveth unto himself alone; the whole cosmic system of which he is a fragment gains or loses with his moral victories and defeats - while the future life of the individual is determined by his guilt or merit here. The final decisive conflict is not far away, wherein Ahriman and all his cohorts will be routed, after which the reign of universal righteousness and peace will prevail.

Thus, instead of renunciation and peace, Zoroaster taught the need of effort and reform; the evil in the world was to be not passively endured, but actively fought and banished; its presence was due not merely to our weakness and folly, but to an Evil Principle which we must all join in opposing, until it is finally overcome and human life is redeemed. There was rather little of ceremony in the religion, no temples or statues of the gods; but sacred fires were kept burning on the hilltops in honor of the great god whose loyal soldiers men must be. A bit of this sacred fire was carried to India by the Parsees who fled before the Mohammedan invasion, which in Persia, as in so many lands, wiped out the indigenous religion. In the region about Bombay they still hold to a faith which is a development of their ancestral Iranian cult. But in Persia itself the old faith is as dead as are the Olympian gods of Greece.

M. Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda. A. Barth, Religions of India. E. W. Hopkins, Religions of India. P. D. C. de la Saussaye, Manual of the Science of Religion, chaps. LVIII-LXXXIII. G. F. Moore, History of Religions, chaps. XI-XIV. A. Menzies, History of Religion, chaps. XVIII-XX. T. W. Rhys-Davids, Buddhism; Buddhist India; Dialogues of the Buddha. R. S. Copleston, Buddhism, Primitive and Present. P. Carus, Gospel of Buddha. Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia (poem). H. E. Warren, Buddhism in Translations. M. Müller, ed., Sacred Books of the East, vol. x.

H. Hackmann, Buddhism as a Religion. H. F. Hall, The Soul of a People. P. V. N. Myers, History as Past Ethics, chap. VII. M. Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism. Hibbert Journal, vol. 1, p. 465. Hastings' Encyclopædia, Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia, and Encyclopædia Britannica, ad. loc.

A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroaster. J. H. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism. Encyclopædia Britannica, and Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia, ad. loc. G. F. Moore, op. cit., chap. xv. S. Reinach, Orpheus, chap. II, sec. II. E. Rindtorff, Religion des Zarathushtra. J. Milne, Faiths of the World, pp. 91-121. J. Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal, chap. III.

CHAPTER IV

THE HEBREW RELIGION

WE must now turn our attention to that dramatic series of events that in an obscure corner of the Mediterranean coast developed a religion which has become the most important in the world's history. Christianity is a development of Judaism; so, indeed, is Mohammedanism. All three have shown extraordinary vigor and vitality, so that the Aryan religions have steadily fallen away before the Semitic. But no one of these three would have existed, at least in its actual form, but for the peculiar history of that handful of tribes that formed the small but patriotic Jewish nation.1

How did the Hebrew monotheism arise?

In the earliest days of the Jewish people that extant documents allow us to reproduce with any assurance,2 we find them a loose aggregation of nomadic tribes, closely

1 For Hebrew history see C. F. Kent, History of the Hebrew People; History of the Jewish People. C. H. Cornill, History of the People of Israel. H. P. Smith, Old Testament History. Encyclopædia Britannica.

2 See H. T. Fowler's History of the Literature of Ancient Israel. Our main source is, of course, the Old Testament itself. See S. R. Driver's or C. H. Cornill's or J. E. MacFadyen's Introduction to the Old Testament. The best editions of the Bible for historical study are: C. F. Kent's Students' Old Testament (the most accurate and up-to-date translation into English yet available, the books arranged partly in chronological and partly in topical order, introductions and textual footnotes, in six large volumes); P. Haupt, ed., Polychrome Bible (a new and admirable English version, with excellent explanatory notes; the different documents distinguished by differently colored backgrounds on the pages. Unfortunately publication has been stopped for financial reasons, with only a few volumes available);