that all attempts to reconstruct Persian chronology or history prior to the reign of the first Sassanid have been relinquished as futile.[125] Doellinger[126] thinks he may have been “somewhat later than Moses, perhaps about B.C. 1300,” but says, “it is impossible to fix precisely” when he lived.  Rawlinson[127]| merely remarks that Berosus places him anterior to B.C. 2234.  Haug is inclined to date the Gathas, the oldest songs of the Avesta, as early as the time of Moses.[128] Rapp,[129] after a thorough comparison of ancient writers, concludes that Zoroaster lived B.C. 1200 or 1300.  In this he agrees with Duncker, who, as we have seen, decided upon the same date.  It is not far from the period given by the oldest Greek writer who speaks of Zoroaster,—­Xanthus of Sardis, a contemporary of Darius.  It is the period given by Cephalion, a writer of the second century, who takes it from three independent sources.  We have no sources now open to us which enable us to come nearer than this to the time in which he lived.

Nor is anything known with certainty of the place where he lived or the events of his life.  Most modern writers suppose that he resided in Bactria.  Haug maintains that the language of the Zend books is Bactrian[130].  A highly mythological and fabulous life of Zoroaster, translated by Anquetil du Perron, called the Zartusht-Namah[131], describes him as going to Iran in his thirtieth year, spending twenty years in the desert, working miracles during ten years, and giving lessons of philosophy in Babylon, with Pythagoras as his pupil.  All this is based on the theory (now proved to be false) of his living in the time of Darius.  “The language of the Avesta,” says Max Muller, “is so much more primitive than the inscriptions of Darius, that many centuries must have passed between the two periods represented by these two strata of language[132].”  These inscriptions are in the Achaemenian dialect, which is the Zend in a later stage of linguistic growth.

Sec. 5.  Spirit of Zoroaster and of his Religion

It is not likely that Zoroaster ever saw Pythagoras or even Abraham.  But though absolutely nothing is known of the events of his life, there is not the least doubt of his existence nor of his character.  He has left the impress of his commanding genius on great regions, various races, and long periods of time.  His religion, like that of the Buddha, is essentially a moral religion.  Each of them was a revolt from the Pantheism of India, in the interest of morality, human freedom, and the progress of the race.  They differ in this, that each takes hold of one side of morality, and lets go the opposite.  Zoroaster bases his law on the eternal distinction between right and wrong; Sakya-muni, on the natural laws and their consequences, either good or evil.  Zoroaster’s law is, therefore, the law of justice; Sakya-muni’s, the law of mercy.  The one makes the supreme good to consist in truth, duty,