Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/368

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SECTS
335

Ormazd allots happiness to man. If man does not receive it it is owing to the extortion of these planets.[1] Like brigands and highwaymen they rob the righteous of their good lot and bestow it upon the wicked.[2] Ahriman has specially created them for the purpose of depriving man of the happiness which the good stars would bestow upon man.[3] Like witches they rush upon the creation to spread evil,[4] and pervert every creature that comes across their path.[5] Fate, as the guardian of the celestial sphere, is therefore implored to help mankind at all times and in every deed.[6] That which is ordained to come to pass will unfailingly happen; man should not worry over things over which he has no control. He should learn to receive with tranquillity and calm whatever falls to his lot.[7] Though nothing in the world can rescind the inexorable decree of Fate,[8] divine Providence, moved by the prayers and supplications of mortals, can still, in special cases, intervene in mortal behalf. Owing to the counter-movements of the evil planets, Providence rarely interferes.[9]

The inscrutable power of Fate. Among the masses humility is apt to degenerate into servility in human affairs, or into fatalism in their relations with the superhuman powers. In Persia, the dissolution of the great empire, and the centuries of struggle and servitude that followed the national catastrophe, drove the Iranians to believe in Fate, the inevitable necessity before which they had to bow. The fatalist doctrine pervades the writings of the Pahlavi period. As early as the fifth century the Armenian controversialist Eznik attacks this fatalistic doctrine of the Persians.[10] Fate, we are told, is written on man's forehead; he is fettered to it from his very birth.[11] Man is ignorant of the course mapped out for him by Fate, which guides the affairs of the world.[12] Fate holds sovereign sway over every one and everything.[13] Vazurgmitra states that the world shows that fools prosper and the wise suffer, for which reason he up-

  1. ↑ Mkh. 38 4, 5.
  2. ↑ Sg. 4 24–27.
  3. ↑ Mkh. 12 7–9.
  4. ↑ Sg. 4 9.
  5. ↑ Mkh. 8 20.
  6. ↑ SLS. 22. 31.
  7. ↑ SLS. 20 13; Mkh. 27 11.
  8. ↑ SLS. 20 17; Dk., vol. 12, bk. 6. A. 6, p. 36, 37.
  9. ↑ Mkh. 24 3–8.
  10. ↑ Eznik, Against the Sects, German tr. Schmid, 2. 15, Vienna, 1900.
  11. ↑ Mkh. 24 6.
  12. ↑ Mkh. 27. 10.
  13. ↑ Mkh. 47. 7.
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