Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/370

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SECTS
337

he shall reap the reward of righteousness or the retribution of wickedness.[1] Tansar, in his letter to Jasnaf, the king of Tabaristan, writes that it is wrong to deny the sovereign sway of Fate over man's life, but it is equally wrong to give up personal effort under the exaggerated idea of the influence of Fate. The wise, he continues, should take the middle course, for Fate and man's free will are like two loads on the back of an animal. If either is heavier than the other, both fall down.[2]

Despite such prominence given to the workings of Fate by the Pahlavi writers, fatalism never came to be employed among the Zoroastrians as an excuse for cloaking man's indolence. It is idle persons, we are told, that blame Fate.[3] The feeble and faltering always throw the burden of their faults on Fate. The ever active spirit of Zoroastrianism militated against fatalism, and saved the people from much of its baneful influences.

  1. ↑ Dd 71 3.
  2. ↑ Darmesteter, Lettre de Tansar au roi de Tabaristan, in JA, 1894, 1 p. 553.
  3. ↑ AnAtM 119.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.