The name which Zarathustra taught the people to give to the one god was unconnected with Aryan nature-names, Dyâus, or Varu_n_a, or Indra. He simply called him the ‘Great Spirit,’ or, in the Zend, Ahura-mazda;[89] in later Persian, Hormuzd or Ormuzd. He is the all-perfect, all-wise, all-powerful, all-beautiful. He is the creator of all things. And--still nearer to the Christian belief--before the creation of the world, by means whereof the world itself was made, existed the _Word_. Some trace of this same doctrine of the pre-existing Word (_Hanover_, in the Zoroastrian religion) is to be found in the Vedas, where he is called _Vach_. It would be here impossible to enter into an examination of the question how far these early religions seem to shadow forth the mystical doctrine of the _Logos_. The evil principle opposed to Ormuzd is Angra-Mainyus (Ahrimanes), but in the true doctrine he is by no means the equal of God, no more so than is Satan. The successive corruption of pure Zoroastrianism after the time of its founder is marked by a constant exaggeration of the power of the evil principle (suggested, perhaps, by intercourse with devil-worshipping nations of a lower type) until Ahrimanes becomes the rival of Ormuzd, coequal and co-eternal with him.
Such is the simple creed of the Persians, accompanied of course by rites and ceremonies, part invented by the reformer, part inherited from the common Aryan parentage. It is well known that the Persians built no temples, but worshipped Ormuzd chiefly upon the mountain-tops; that they paid great respect to all the elements--that is to air, water, and fire, the latter most of all--a belief which they shared with their Indian brethren, but stopped far short of worshipping any. That they held very strongly the separate idea of the soul, so that when once a body had lost its life, they considered it to be a thing wholly corrupt and evil; a doctrine which carried in the germ that of the inherent evil of matter, as the philosophical reader will discern.
It remains to say something of their religious books. The _Zend Avesta_ was supposed to comprise the teaching of Zoroaster, and was believed to have been written by him. Only one complete book has been preserved--it is called the _Vendidâd_. The _Zend_ language in which the _Avesta_ is written is the oldest known form of Persian, older than that in use at the time of Darius the Great; but this is no proof that it dates back to the days of Zarathustra. Part of it is in prose and part in verse, and as in every literature we find that the fragments of verse are they which survive the longest, it has been conjectured that the songs of the _Zend Avesta_ (Gâthâs they are called) may even have been written by the great reformer himself.