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original purity of the faith by stripping off the accretions that had gathered round the pure canon of the prophet, thus removing the haze of ignorance and bigotry that had overclouded the light of their excellent religion.
All this was highly sacrilegious to orthodox ears. Such statements roused the strong resentment of the community and elicited vehement protests from priests and laymen alike. The new school was assailed on all sides. More sober opinion intervened to modify the sweeping assertions, and declared that while the Gathas, of course, should be taken as the norm, there should also be admitted into the Zoroastrian canon such parts of the later scriptures as were in accord with the Gathic spirit; but whatever could not be traced to the Gathas was adventitious, and therefore not deserving of acceptance. The problem at once arose as to who was going to distinguish the authoritative from the unauthoritative and a new controversy opened amid still more bitter feelings.
A new theory to defend the Gathas from the accusation of dualism. The salient feature of dualism in the Iranian faith has ever been the chief point assailed by the non-Zoroastrians, both in ancient and modern times, whenever they have entered into religious disputations with the followers of the prophet. They have laid the doctrine of two gods to the charge of Zoroastrianism. The accidentals of the controversy have varied materially in their character at different periods, but the main point of contention has ever remained the same. We have already seen how vehemently the learned prelates of the Pahlavi period strove to vindicate this characteristic feature of the Zoroastrian teachings. Far from considering it a weak point, they hailed it as the only possible solution of the problem of evil. Not so their modern descendants. The repeated attack of the Christian missionaries, and the strong influence of the Western literature, which hailed monotheism as the highest category of theology, brought about an unprecedented change in this belief; and so powerful has this influence been, that we hardly ever find even at this day any learned Parsi priest or layman marshalling arguments in vindication of the doctrine. Attempts are now generally made either to explain it away by ingenious arguments or to speak of it apologetically.
Haug was the first to bring it to the notice of the Parsis that