L 6o I dean Magi, their Neighbours if not their Præceptors, afferted three Beginnings, which they called Ormafes, Mitris, and .4riminis; i. e. God, Mind, and Soul. Thefe Perfians were fo named originally, it is faid, from Perez, or Parez, the Sun; which they alto worfhipped tinder the Title of Zar-after. " They have been at dif- ferent .eEras greatly diftreffed and perfecuted; and ef- pecially upon the Death of their laft King Tefdegerd. Upon this Account they retired into Gedrofa and India; where People of the fame Family had for Ages refided. They carried with them fome ¡battered Memorials of their Religion in writing, from which the Sadder, Sheller, Vedam, and.Zandavafta (the Books of their Religion) were compiled. Thefe Memorials feem to have been taken from antient Symbols ill underfiood; and all that re- mains of them confifts of extravagant Allegories and Fables, of which but little can now be decyphered. Upon thefe Traditions the prefent Religion of the .Brahmins and Parfees is founded." * In the following Emblem of the Deity (whom the more antient Per- jans ftyled Axon, the Sun, which they believed was his Symbol or vifible Reprefentative), taken, among others, from the Noble Ruins at Iftachar and Naki Rufian in Perfia;-f- we may perceive a ftrong Refemblance to the ' Dodtrine of the Platonic Trinity, Alerting three divine Hypo/afes, f° the TáynS", the vaç or Toyoç, and the 44%4; all eternal, neceffa- ". rily exiffent, undeftroyable, and in a Manner infinite, and which " had a common TO Sao,, or Deity, (though this Scheme, rightly ' hated, gave little, if any, Encouragement to the Principles of " Arius); yet the junior?Plptonijls, out of fpite to Chrifianity (to " which the OLD SCHEME did too near approach) began to depart t, from the antient DoEtrine of Plato in this matter, ítretching the °i Differences and gradual Subordination, which the elder Platonijls had amongft the Hypojlafes, into too wide a Diftance; particu- larly they made the third Hypojlafis to be 4,20) iyKoo o ., the im- " mediate Soul of the World, informing and a&ing all Parts of the Creation; thereby blending GOD and the Creature together, if or rather debafing the Deity into the hank of Creatures." In grit. Athan. § i. * BRYANT Anal. Vol. ii. p. tog. t Ibid. Vol. ii. p. izi. Symbol
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