Zoroastrian Civilization - From the Earliest Times to the Downfall of the Last Zoroastrian Empire 651 A. D #262306

Scope of the work. Zoroastrian Persia has filled the greatest number of pages in the ancient history of the East, and has made a name that will live as long as time endures. The mighty em pires of the ancient Persians covered a vast portion of Ahura Mazda's earth and included nearly all civilized nations. Three thousand years and more before the present day Zarathushtra, the prophet of Persia preached his excellent religion which has so greatly enriched the religious thought of the world, and, ac cording to the consensus of Opinion of Biblical scholars, has in fluenced, in their making, three of the great world religions, Juda ism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. Mithraism and Manichaeism, offshoots of Zoroastrianism, penetrated into Euro pean territory, and have left evidences of their influence in the ruins of temples and in sacred literature. The civilizations of the East and the West met in Persia for the first time in history under the Parsi kings of the Achaemenian dynasty. Zoroastrian Persia played the part of intermediary between East and West for several centuries, and her people enjoyed an importance quite unique in the world's history, from about 1000 B c to the seventh century A. D., when their vast empire vanished.