320
THE DECLINE AND FALL'
CHAP.
VIII.
as the debates of so tumultuous an assembly_ could not have been directed by the authorityof reason, or influenced by the art of policy, thePersian synod was reduced, by successive ope-rations, to forty thousand, to four thousand, tofour hundred, to forty, and at last to sevenMagi, the most respected for their learning andpiety One of these, Erdaviraph, a young hutholy prelate, received from the hands of his breth-ren three cups of soporiferous wine. He drankthem off, and instantly fell into a long and pro-found sleep. As soon as he waked, he relatedto the king and to the believing multitude, hisjourney to heaven, and his intimate conferenceswith the Deity . Every doubt was silenced bythis supernatural evidence; and the articles olthe faith of Zoroaster were fixed with equal au-thority and precision. 1 A short delineation ofthat celebrated system will be found useful, notonly to display the character of the Persian na-tion, but to illustrate many of their most impor-tant transactions, both in peace and war, withthe Roman empire. 11
The great and fundamental article of the sys-tem, was the celebrated doctrine of the two prin-ciples ; a bold and injudicious attempt of easternphilosophy to reconcile the existence of moral
1 Hyde de Religione vetermn Peis. c. 21.
k I have principally drawn this account from the Zendavesta of M.d’Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr. Hyde’s treatise. It must,however, be confessed, that the studied obscurity of a prophet, the fi-gurative style of the East, and tile deceitful medium of a French orLatin version, may have betrayed us into error and heresy, in thisabridgment of Persian theology.