Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/25

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NEXT-OF-KIN MARRIAGES.

precept of "pious mind, pious words, pious actions."^[1]

But, here, I may be allowed to observe that the Greeks who charged the Persians with the crime of next-of-kin marriages, and who were distinguished among the Western nations before the Christian era for the high stage of civilization they had reached, were not unfamiliar with incestuous enormities. (1) In the Prefatio of Cornelius Nepos, the contemporary of Cicero, it is said that "Cimon, the greatest of the Athenians, was not dishonoured for having espoused his sister on the father's side." (2) The celebrated comic poet Aristophanes, who flourished in the 5th century

↑ Comp. my ed. of C. E. Irânians, vol. I., pp. 162–163:—"It affords indeed proof of a great ethical tendency and of a very sober and profound way of thinking, that the Avestâ people, or at least the priests of their religion, arrived at the truth that sins by thought must be ranked with sins by deed, and that, therefore, the actual root and source of everything good or bad must be sought in the mind. It would not be easy to find a people that attained under equal or similar historical conditions to such a height of ethical knowledge."—Also cf. "Christ and Other Masters," by the Rev. Mr. Hardwick, p. 541:—"In the measure of her moral sensibility, Persia may be fairly ranked among the brightest spots of ancient heathendom."

[1] Comp. my ed. of C. E. Irânians, vol. I., pp. 162–163:—"It affords indeed proof of a great ethical tendency and of a very sober and profound way of thinking, that the Avestâ people, or at least the priests of their religion, arrived at the truth that sins by thought must be ranked with sins by deed, and that, therefore, the actual root and source of everything good or bad must be sought in the mind. It would not be easy to find a people that attained under equal or similar historical conditions to such a height of ethical knowledge."—Also cf. "Christ and Other Masters," by the Rev. Mr. Hardwick, p. 541:—"In the measure of her moral sensibility, Persia may be fairly ranked among the brightest spots of ancient heathendom."

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