ssing every blessing, "health, wealth, virtue, wisdom,
immortality." From him comes all good to man; on the pious and the
righteous he bestows not only earthly advantages, but precious spiritual
gifts, truth, devotion, "the good mind," and everlasting happiness; and
as he rewards the good, so he punishes the bad, though this is an aspect
in which he is but seldom represented.

It has been said that this conception of Ahura-mazda as the Supreme
Being is "_perfectly identical_ with the notion of Elohim, or Jehovah,
which we find in the books of the Old Testament." This is, no doubt,
an over-statement. Ahura-mazda is less spiritual and less awful than
Jehovah. He is less remote from the nature of man. The very ascription
to him of health (_haurvat_) is an indication that he is conceived of
as possessing a sort of physical nature. Lucidity and brilliancy are
assigned to him, not (as it would seem) in a mere metaphorical sense.
Again, he is so predominantly the author of good things, the source of
blessing and prosperity, that he could scarcely inspire his votaries
with any feeling of fear. Still, considering the general failure of
unassisted reason to mount up to the true notion of a spiritual
God, this doctrine of the early Arians is very remarkable; and its
approximation to the truth sufficiently explains at once the favorable
light in which its professors are viewed by the Jewish prophets, and the
favorable opinion which they form of the Jewish system. Evidently,
the Jews and Arians, when they became known to one another, recognized
mutually the fact that they were worshippers of the same great Being.
Hence the favor of the Persians towards the Jews, and the fidelity of
the Jews towards the Persians. The Lord God of the Jews being recognized
as identical with Ormazd, a sympathetic feeling united the peoples. The
Jews, so impatient generally of a foreign yoke, never revolted from
the Persians; and the Persians, so intolerant, for the most part, of
religions other than their own, respected and protected Judaism.

The sympathy was increased by the fact that the religion of Ormazd was
anti-idolatrous. In the early nature-worship idolatry had been allowed;
but the Iranic system pronounced against it from the first. No images
of Ahura-mazda, or of the Izeds, profaned the severe simplicity of
an Iranic temple. It was only after a long lapse of ages that,
in connection with a foreign worship, idolatry crept in. The old
Zoroastr