Though the Sassanids sought to restore the kingdom of the Achæmenids, and immortalise their own achievements beside those of the early kings, the religious revival which they undertook was far more thorough than the political. In this direction they went further than the Achæmenids; they caused the forms which the old faith of Iran had retained and forced on the East, to be current throughout the whole kingdom. Agathias assures us that Ardeshir was eagerly devoted to the study of the doctrine of the Magians, who since his accession had gained an importance such as they never enjoyed before. The business of the State was decided upon their advice and predictions; they assisted individual persons in their private matters and suits at law, and the Persians did not regard anything as legal and right which was not confirmed by a Magian.¹⁰³ At the head of the Magians, we are told in another account coming from a western source, a Grand Magian was placed under the Sassanids,¹⁰⁴ and as a fact the Magians now received a thorough organisation. At the head of their caste was the High Magian (Magupat, Mobedh); and over all the High Magians was the Grand Magian (Magupatan magupat); to the Magians belonged the judicial power; and the Grand Magian performed the coronation of the king. The Sassanids erected fire-temples in Persia no less than in Aderbeijan; their coins always exhibit the fire-altar, and as a rule two priests before it. They carried their genealogy beyond Sassan through Çpentodata (p. 38) to Vistaçpa of Bactria, who is now said to have established the seven princes; they call themselves by the names of the ancient heroes who met us in the Avesta; Kavadh (Kava Kavata) and Chosru (Kava Huçrava). While styling themselves the worshippers of Mazda (Auramazda) like the founders of their empire, they went so far as to assume the names of the gods of the Avesta; some even called themselves after Verethraghna (Varahran, Bahram), others Auharmazdi after Auramazda himself. The numerous Christians on the Euphrates and Tigris as well as in Armenia had to undergo severe persecutions; especially under Shapur II., Varahran V., and Yezdegerd II. (438-457 A.D.), whose viceroy declared to the Armenian Christians that the Daevas (Dews) of Ahriman had deceived them; it was not the good God who had created evil and death but the wicked spirit. Defection from the faith of Auramazda was punished with death. In the treaties of the years 422, 533, and 563 A.D. Theodosius II. and Justinian obtained the concession that the Christians in the kingdom of the Sassanids should not be compelled to conform to the rules of the Magians; they were to be at liberty to bury their dead,¹⁰⁵ whereas the doctrine of Zarathrustra required that the corpses should be exposed.

As such was the attitude of the house of the Sassanids, we may believe the books of the Parsees that Ardeshir eagerly took in hand the revival of the true faith, and that he was assisted in this by competent Magians; by Arda Viraf, according to the book of the Exodus and of Arda Viraf (p. 50); according to the Dinkart, by the Herbedh Tosar. The book of Arda Viraf relates at length how he fell asleep in the assembly of priests before Ardeshir, and his soul was carried by the god Çraosha through heaven and hell. And when the Dinkart represents a standard of true religion as being set up under Ardeshir, there is no reason to doubt the statement. After the reign of Ardeshir, we are told in the Book of the Exodus, the true religion was again suspended, or, as the Book of Arda Viraf tells us, a schism arose. The cause of this division is sufficiently known from other sources. In the reign of Shapur I. (241-272 A.D.) a native of Ctesiphon, of the name of Mani, came forward with a new doctrine which attempted to mingle Chaldæan, Jewish, and Christian elements in the faith of Iran, and to resolve it into abstractions. He found numerous adherents.¹⁰⁶ Varahran II. (276-293 A.D.) allowed him to dispute with the Magians, and then put him to death. Under Shapur II., who succeeded his father Auharmazdi II. as a posthumous child (309-379 A.D.), in order to check Manicheism and the advance of Christianity, it was necessary to go back to the principles of the old faith, and to invigorate these by the collection and establishment of the sacred scriptures. We may therefore have the fullest confidence in accepting from these three books of the Parsees the facts that Shapur "made the sacred faith to be famous;" that Aderbat, whose work under Shapur is confirmed by Hamza of Isfahan, collected the scriptures, purified the sayings of Zarathrustra, and enumerated the chapters. It is on this redaction of the canon by Aderbat Mahresfant under Shapur II. that the list of the books and chapters rests, distinguishing what were originally in existence and what were then preserved. What was not discovered "after Alexander" means what was not discovered or not accepted at this redaction. Instead of the 815 chapters which the Avesta is said to have previously contained, the new canon amounted to only 348 chapters. That Aderbat was the founder of this canon is clear not only from the epithet which the books of the Parsees give him (Mahresfant, Old Bactrian Manthraçpenta, meaning "the sacred word,") but also from the confession of faith still in use among the Parsees: "I abide in the law which Zarathrustra taught to Vistaçpa, to Frashaostra, to Jamaçpa, and Çpentodata, which came in the succession of generations to Aderbat, who duly corrected and purified it."¹⁰⁷ It was shown above that the language of the sacred books thus again collected was that of Eastern Iran (p. 30). When Aderbat revised the canon it had long ceased to be spoken. But there were already translations of the sacred books into the later forms which the language of Iran had received in the time of the Parthians, or at any rate such translations were made after the revision of the canon.¹⁰⁸ Masudi informed us that the Avesta was composed in the old Persian language, which at that time (tenth century A.D.) was no longer understood. Ibn Haukal, who travelled in Persia in the same century, tells us: "In Fars three languages are in use; the Farsi, in which the inhabitants converse with each other; the Pehlevi, which was the language of the ancient Persians, and in which the Magians wrote their historical books, but which in our time is no longer understood by the inhabitants of Fars without a translation; and the Arabian.¹⁰⁹" When Aderbat revised the Avesta in the middle of the fourth century B.C., the Parsi (Farsi), i. e. the later Middle Persian, was still in formation; the older Middle Persian or Pehlevi was still intelligible, but translations of the Avesta into this language did not make clear to every one the meaning of the ancient language in which the scriptures were composed. In the time of the Parthian empire the old mode of writing was given up in the West as well as in the East of Iran, and exchanged for new methods. In the West a cuneiform character derived from the writing of Babylon and Assyria had been adopted; the East used the Arian alphabet. Under the Arsacids the Pehlevi became common. Like the old Persian cuneiform this is borrowed from a Semitic pattern. The chief city of the Parthians lay on the Tigris in the midst of a Semitic population. The cursive character of the Aramæans, as we find it on the coins of the satraps of the Achæmenids of the fourth century B.C., with a few modifications, forms the base of the Pehlevi; and the earlier shapes of this character are seen in the coins of the Arsacids of the first century A.D. But it is not the character which forms the peculiar mark of Pehlevi. Along with the Aramaic letters the Parthians took the Aramaic vocabulary; they wrote the Aramaic word instead of the Persian, and to this they attached the termination or case-ending of the corresponding Persian word; the reader must understand Aramaic and substitute the Persian word for the Aramaic when reading.¹¹⁰ Hence Pehlevi was in reality a secret mode of writing, intended exclusively for the learned, i. e. for the priests. It is a proof of the close connection between the priests of the East and West that this character, which arose in the West out of the contact with the Aramaic population on the Euphrates and Tigris, spread to the East also and was adopted by the scholars there. Nor was this all. The variations in the Eastern dialect brought about certain modifications in the forms of the letters, and thus there arose an Eastern alphabet of Pehlevi beside the Western alphabet. When Ardeshir destroyed the empire of the Parthians in the year 226 A.D. these two alphabets were in existence. The Eastern alphabet finally triumphed over the Western. It became the royal mode of writing, and as such was used on the coins. The letters in the manuscripts of the Pehlevi translation of the Avesta in the possession of the Parsees agree throughout with the characters on the legends of the coins of the Sassanids about the year 600 A.D.¹¹¹ The characters also, in which the text of the Avesta is written in the manuscripts of the Parsees, belong to the later East-Pehlevi alphabet, which, owing to the greater wealth of the old Bactrian alphabet in sounds, especially in vowels, possesses a greater number of letters.¹¹² The coincidence of the letters in the manuscripts of the Parsees with those on the coins of the later Sassanids, proves beyond contradiction that although the oldest existing manuscripts belong to the fourteenth century of our era,¹¹³ they are nevertheless true copies of the characters in which the Avesta was written in the last century of the empire of the Sassanids.

All that the Parsees of India now possess are some not very extensive remains of the revision of the sacred scriptures made in the reign of Shapur II. The existing part of the laws corresponds in the title, the divisions and their arrangements, with the twentieth book of the text (p. 52). It contains the rubrics for purification, for repelling and removing the evil spirits. The title is the Vendîdad, or, in the older form, the Vidaevodata, i. e. "given against the Daevas," or evil spirits. Obviously this book was regarded as the most important and valuable part of the law, and to this circumstance it owes its preservation. Besides this we have invocations and prayers, chiefly belonging to the liturgy. They form a considerable collection, known by the title of Yaçna, i. e. worship. The remainder of the 348 chapters was lost in the invasion of the Arabs into Iran, owing to their fanatical zeal for conversion.¹¹⁴

Though we were able to establish the fact that these fragments belonged in their language, their contents, and their written character to Eastern Iran, and the evidence of Western writers proved to us that at the time when Alexander of Macedon overthrew the kingdom of the Achæmenids, there were sacred scriptures of considerable extent in Iran – this does not enable us to decide the date of the origin of these scriptures. We have to inquire whether these writings were known in the West of Iran also, before the date of the Sassanids; whether the new collection and revision about the year 350 of our era was satisfied with faithfully representing the old condition of the scriptures, so far as it could be discovered, or whether it altered their contents; whether the influence exercised by Hellenic and Aramaic elements in the time of the Seleucids and Parthians – so obvious in the one case and so searching in the other – affected the contents of the Avesta.¹¹⁵ This question cannot be set aside, because even under the Sassanids, in spite of their zeal for the Avesta and for Iran, these elements were not unknown. We are aware that Greek and Jewish schools flourished in Syria and Mesopotamia at the date of the Sassanids, that Chosru Nushirvan (531-578 A.D.) gave his protection to Damascius and the Platonists in his kingdom, and caused Greek works to be translated. However much other virtues, required in the Avesta, were extolled in this ruler, such as the foundation of fire-temples, and appointment of sacristans for them, the promotion of agriculture (no temple was to be without cultivated lands) and of marriages – nevertheless sects sprung up within the true religion. Even in official documents of the fifth century we find a certain deviation from the doctrine of the Avesta; under king Kavadh (488-453 A.D.), Mazdak, who proclaimed the community of goods and women, found adherents, and the Arabs speak of sects in Iran which opposed the teaching of the Magians.¹¹⁶ They mention the Zarvanites, the Gayomarthians, and others, of whom the Zarvanites sought to derive the good and evil deity from some higher abstraction,¹¹⁷ while the Gayomarthians represented the evil deity as proceeding from the thought of the good deity. Had conceptions of this kind, and other later views which we find in their doctrines, influence on the restoration of the canon? The fact that the sacred writings were composed in a language no longer current, when the canon was restored, is not a complete safeguard against changes and interpolations, for the priests at that time may have understood the language, and therefore may possibly have been able to compose in it.