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Christian subjects of the Persian king in Armenia, we are informed, were promised high positions, court distinctions, royal favours, and the remission of the taxes, if they accepted the national faith of Iran. Mihr Narsih, the premier of Yazdagard II (A.D. 438–457), in the proclamation to the Christian population in Armenia that he issued at the royal command, exhorts them to adopt the religion that their sovereign holds, and adds that those that do not acknowledge the Mazdayasnian faith are deaf and blind, and are misled by Ahriman.^[1] Elisaeus informs us that this proselytizing movement on the part of the Magi of Sasanian times was not confined to Armenia alone, but it extended further to Georgia, Albania, and various other countries.^[2]

Judaism and Christianity penetrate into Persia as the formidable rivals of the national faith. When the Zoroastrian Church was thus engaged in promulgating the faith of Zoroaster outside Persia, her religious supremacy was challenged at home by Judaism, and more aggressively by Christianity.^[3] Ardashir had established Zoroastrianism as the state religion of Persia, but there were in the empire colonies of people following other religions. Iran had long ceased to be a religious unit, and the vast number of Jews, Christians, and others of divergent faiths and creeds contributed towards disunion. Referring to the presence of the people professing different religions in his kingdom, King Hormizd IV once remarked that his throne rested on four feet;^[4] and troublesome these outside elements certainly proved to the sovereign occupying the throne. A fairly tolerable latitude was conceded to these adherents of the alien faiths, though occasional persecutions of them were not unknown. These non-Zoroastrians frequently occasioned heated polemics in which virulent criticism and derisive terms were exchanged between the Zoroastrian priests on the one side and the prelates of the rival faiths on the other. Iranian society was often convulsed with the storm of controversy. The alien faiths were branded as the promptings of the Evil Spirit, and were declared to be teaching a vile law,