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Persia.

Arabian prophet; and charity will hope that many of his CHAP. proselytes entertained a serious conviction of the truth and sanctity of his revelation. In the eyes of an inquisitive polytheist, it must appear worthy of the human and divine nature. More pure than the system of Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the religion of Mahomet might seem less inconsistent with reason, than the creed of mystery and superstition, which, in the seventh century, disgraced the simplicity of the gospel.

In the extensive provinces of Persia and Africa, the na- Fall of the tional religion has been eradicated by the Mahometan faith. Magians of The ambiguous theology of the Magi stood alone among the sects of the East: but the profane writings of Zoroaster198 might, under the reverend name of Abraham, be dextrously connected with the chain of divine revelation. Their evilprinciple, the dæmon Ahriman, might be represented as the rival or as the creature of the God of light. The temples of Persiawere devoidof images; but the worship of the sun and of fire might be stigmatized as a gross and criminal idolatry.199 The milder sentiment was consecrated by the practice of Mahomet 200 and the prudence of the caliphs; the Magians or Ghebers were ranked with the Jews and Christians among the people of the written law; 201 and as late as the third century of the Hegira, the city of Herat will afford a lively

198 The Zend or Pazend, the bible of the Chebers, is reckoned by them. selves, or at least by the Mahometa is, among the ten books which Abraliam received from heaven; and their religion is honourably styied the religion of Abraham (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 701; Hyde, de Religione veterum Persarum, c. iii. p. 27, 28, &c.) I much fear that we do not possess any pure and free description of the system of Zoroaster. Dr. Prideaux (Connection, vol.i. p. 300. octavo) adopts the opinion, that he had been the slave and scholar of some Jewish prophet in the captivity of Babylon. Perhaps the Persians, who have been the masters of the Jews, would assert the honour, a poor ho. nour, of being their masters.

199 The Arabian Nights, a faithful and amusing picture of the Oriental world, represent in the most odious colours the Magians, or worshippers of fire, to whom they attribute the annual sacrifice of a Musulman. The religion of Zoroaster has not the least affinity with that of the Hindoos, yet they are often confounded by the Mahometans; and the sword of Timour was sharpened by this mistake (Hist. de Timour Bec par Cherefeddin Ali Yezdi, l.v).

200 Vie de Mahomet, par Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 114, 115.

201 Hæ tres sectæ, Judæi, Christiani, et qui inter Persas Magorum institu. tis addicti sunt, xat'ižoxnu, populi libri dicuntur (Reland, Dissertat. tom. iii. p. 15). The caliph Al Mamun confirms this honourable distinction in favour of the three sects, with the vague and equivocal religion of the Sabæans, under which the ancient polytheists of Charre were allowed to shelter their idola. trous worship (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 167, 168).

VOL. VI.

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CHAP. contrast of private zeal and public toleration.202 Under the LI.

payment of an annual tribute, the Mahometan law secured to the Ghebers of Herat, their civil and religious liberties, but the recent and humble mosch was overshadowed by the antique splendour of the adjoining temple of fire. A fanatic Imam deplored, in his sermons, the scandalous neighbourhood, and accused the weakness or indifference of the faithful. Excited by his voice, the people assembled in tumult; the two houses of prayer were consumed by the flames, but the vacant ground was immediately occupied by the foundations of a new mosch. The injured Magi appealed to the sovereign of Chorasan ; he promised justice and relief; when, hehold! four thousand citizens of Herat, of a grave character and mature age, unanimously swore that the idolatrous fane had never existed; the inquisition was silenced: and their conscience was satisfied (says the historian Mirchond 205) with this holy and meritorious perjury.204 But the greatest part of the temples of Persia were ruined by the insensible and general desertion of their votaries. It was insensible, since it is not accompanied with any memorial of time or place, of persecution or resistance. It was general, since the whole realm, from Shiraz to Samarcand, imbibed the faith of the Koran; and the preservation of the native tongue reveals the descent of the Mahometans of Persia.205

202 This singular story is related by d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 448, 449.) on the faith of Khondemir, and by Mirchond himself (Hist. priorum Regum Persarum, &c. p. 9, 10. not. p. 88, 89).

203 Mirchond (Mohammed Emir Khoondah Shah), a native of Herat, composed in the Persian language a general history of the East, froin the creation to the year of the Hegira 875 (A. D. 1471). In the year 904 (A. D. 1498) the historian obtained the command of a princely library, and his applauded work, in seven or twelve parts, was abbreviated in three volumes by his son Khondemir, A. H. 927, A. D. 1520. The two writers, most accurately distinguished by Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537, 538. 544, 545), are loosely confounded by d'Herbelot (p 358.410.994, 995): but his numerous extracts, under the improper name of Khondemir, belong to the father rather than the son. The historian of Genghizcan refers to a MS.of Mirchond, which he received from the hands of his friend d'Herbelot hin self. A curious fragment (the Taherian and Soffarian Dynasties) has been lately published in Persic and Latin (Viennæ, 1782, in 4to, cum notis Bernard de Jenisch); and the editor allows us to hope for a continuation of Mirchond.

a

LI.

In the mountains and desarts, an obstinate race of unbe- CHAP. lievers adhered to the superstition of their fathers; and a faint tradition of the Magian theology is kept alive in the province of Kirman, along the banks of the Indus, among the exiles of Surat, and in the colony, which, in the last century, was planted by Shaw Abbas at the gates of Ispahan. The chief pontiff has retired to mount Elbourz, eighteen leagues from the city of Yezd: the perpetual fire (if it continue to burn) is inaccessible to the profane; but his residence is the school, the oracle, and the pilgrimage, of the Ghebers, whose hard and uniform features attest the unmingled purity of their blood. Under the jurisdiction of their elders, eighty thousand families maintain an innocent and industrious life; their subsistence is derived from some curious manufactures and mechanic trades; and they cultivate the earth with the fervour of a religious duty. Their ignorance withstood the despotism of Shaw Abbas, who de manded with threats and tortures the prophetic books of Zoroaster; and this obscure remnant of the Magians is spared by the moderation or contempt of their present so

vereigns. 206

Christi

a

The northern coast of Africa is the only land in which Decline the light of the Gospel, after a long and perfect establish- and fall of ment, has been totally extinguished. The arts, which had anity in

Africa, been taught by Carthage and Rome, were involved in cloud of ignorance; the doctrine of Cyprian and Augustin was no longer studied. Five hundred episcopal churches were overturned by the hostile fury of the Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors. The zeal and numbers of the clergy declined; and the people, without discipline, or knowledge, or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke of the Arabian prophet. Within fifty years after the expulsion of A. D. 749. the Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conver

Mahome an faith; and under their dynasty (A. D. 933...1020) I should place the fall of the religion of Zoroaster.

LI.

CHAP. sion;207 and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and re

bellion, his specious pretence was drawn from the rapid and A. D. 837.

extensive progress of the Mahometan faith. In the next age, an extraordinary mission of five bishops was detached from Alexandria to Cairoan. They were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the dying embers of Christianity:208 but the interposition of a foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St. Cyprian, at the

head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal contest A. D. with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh 1053...1076

century, the unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of Carthage, implored the arms and the protection of the Vatican; and he bitterly complains that his naked body had been scourged by the Saracens, and that his authority was disputed by the four suffragans, the tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of Gregory the seventh 209 are destined to soothe the distress of the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope assures the sultan that they both worship the same God, and may hope to meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaint, that three bishops could no

longer be found to consecrate a brother, announces the and Spain, speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order. The

A. b). Christians of Africa and Spain had long since submitted to 1149, &c.

the practice of circumcision and the legal abstinence from wine and pork; and the name of Mozarabes 210 (adoptive

207 The letter of Abdulrahman, governor or tyrant of Africa, to the caliph Aboul Abbas, the first of the Abassides, is dared A. H. 132 (Cardonne, His:. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, tom. i. p. 168).

203 Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 66. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 287, 288.

Arabs) was applied to their civil or religious conformity.211 CHAP. About the middle of the twelfth century the worship of

LI. Christ and the succession of pastors were abolished along the coast of Barbary, and in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, of Valencia and Grenada 212 The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians, was founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their extraordinary rigour might be provoked or justified by the recent victories and intolerant zeal of the princes of Sicily and Castille, of Arragon and Portugal. The faith of the Mozarabes was occasionally revived by the papal missionaries: and, on the landing of Charles the fifth, A. D.

1535. some families of Latin Christians were encouraged to rear their heads at Tunis and Algiers. But the seed of the gospel was quickly eradicated, and the long province from Tripoli to the Atlantic has lost all memory of the language and religion of Rome.213

After the revolution of eleven centuries, the Jews and Toleration Christians of the Turkish empire enjoy the liberty of con

Christians. science which was granted by the Arabian caliphs. During the first age of the conquest, they suspected the loyalty of the Catholics, whose name of Melchites betrayed their secret attachment to the Greek emperor, while the Nestorians, and Jacobites, his inveterate enemies, approved themselves the sincere and voluntary friends of the Mahometan government.214 Yet this partial jealousy was healed by time and

of the