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Some Recent Studies on the Iranian Religions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Louis H. Gray
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska

Extract

It is curious, and perhaps significant, that the two most important volumes on the Iranian religions which have appeared within the last decade should have been written by scholars who were not professed Iranists. Professor James Hope Moulton, the author of the Hibbert Lectures on Early Zoroastrianism (London, 1913), was a theologian and a hellenist; Professor Raffaele Pettazzoni, who has just given us his La Religione di Zarathustra (Bologna, 1920), is a student of comparative religion of the finest and sanest type. Pettazzoni seems not to have had the advantage of consulting Moulton's volume; but while from one point of view this may be regrettable, from another it has worked for good, since two scholars have reached independently results which, when combined, put the genesis of Iranism in an entirely new light and go far toward the solution of many perplexing problems, if, indeed, they may not have solved the riddle as a whole. Of Moulton's work I have expressed an opinion elsewhere, and subsequent reflection has only confirmed that judgement.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1922

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References

1 Vol. i of the Storia delle Religione, edited by him.

2 Expository Times, xxv (1914), 256257Google Scholar; Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vii (1914), 396Google Scholar.

3 Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 12–16; dualism is a Magian doctrine (ibid. pp. 201, 220, 322).

4 Treasure of the Magi, p. 6. “Nothing earlier than the tenth century can be admitted, it would seem, and another century or two may be quite reasonably allowed” (p. 13).

5 Cf. also Gaster, ‘Parsiism in Judaism,’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ix (1917), 637640Google Scholar.

6 Early Zoroastrianism, Lecture vi; cf. his article ‘Magi,’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, viii (1915), pp. 242244Google Scholar; Treasure of the Magi, passim.

7 Les peuples aryens d'Asie et d'Europe, Paris, 1908, pp. 189196Google Scholar.

8 Wigram, , An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church, London, 1910Google Scholar; cf. also Gray, , ‘Zoroastrian and other Ethnic Religious Material in the Acta Sanctorum,’ in Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1913–14, pp. 3755.Google Scholar I have not yet been able to consult Braun's Ausgewählte Akten persischer Märtyrer, Kempten, 1915.

9 See Modi, , ‘Mazdak, the Iranian Socialist,’ in Dastur Hoshang Memorial Volume, Bombay, 1918, pp. 116131Google Scholar.

10 See the recent study by Unvala, , ‘The Religion of the Parthians,’ in Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Madressa Jubilee Volume, Bombay, 1914, pp. 110Google Scholar.

11 See also Jones, , ‘Mithraism,’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, viii (1915), 752759Google Scholar.

12 Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 128–130.

13 Meillet, , ‘Sur les termes religieux iraniens en Arménien,’ in Revue des études arméniennes, i (1921), 233236Google Scholar.

14 צלמאי והומן(?) מר(ד)יא; Jensen, in Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1919, p. 1018; cf. also Jackson, , ‘Images and Idols (Persian),’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vii (1914), 151155Google Scholar.

15 Cf. Gray, , ‘King (Indian),’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vii (1914), 720721Google Scholar; Casartelli, ‘King (Iranian),’ ibid. 721–723; Mercer, , ‘“Emperor”-Worship in Babylonia,’ in Journal of the American Oriental Society, xxxvi (1917), 360380Google Scholar.

16 Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1913–14, p. 39Google Scholar; cf. also Gray, , ‘Fate (Iranian),’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, v (1918), 792793Google Scholar; Edwards, ‘Sects (Zoroastrian),’ ibid, xi (1920), 345–347; Dhalla, , Zoroastrian Theology, New York, 1914, pp. 203205Google Scholar.

17 See also Mile. Menant's articles, ‘Gabars,’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vi (1913), 147156Google Scholar; ‘Parsis,’ ibid, ix (1917), 640–650; Jackson, , Persia Past and Present, New York, 1906, pp. 353400Google Scholar.

18 See, inter alia, Kovalevsky, , ‘Survivals of Iranian Culture in the Caucasian Highlands,’ in Archaeological Review, i (1888), 313331Google Scholar; Ujfalvy, De, Les Aryens au nord etausudde l'Hindou-Kouch, Paris, 1896, pp. 91, 96–97, 329–332, 334, 337–338Google Scholar; Biddulph, , Tribes of the Hindu Koosh, Calcutta, 1880, pp. 75Google Scholar, 108; Olufsen, , Through the Unknown Pamirs, London, 1904, pp. 197199, 205–206Google Scholar.

19 Oxford, 1917 (in the series entitled The Religious Quest of India).

20 A touching tribute to my friend is paid by the Reverend Bardsley Brash in his exquisite chapter on ‘Another “Verray Gentil Knight’” in Letters to ‘The Happy Warrior,’ pp. 25–30.

21 Regarding Mani (p. 113) see now Dhalla, ‘Mani's Asceticism from the Zoroastrian Point of View,’ in Madressa Jubilee Volume, pp. 89–99; on the question of proselytism (pp. 127–181) see Gray, , ‘Missions (Zoroastrian),’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, viii (1915), 749751Google Scholar, and Mile. Menant, ‘Une évolution sociale chez les Parsis,’ in Revue d' ethnographie et de sociologie, 1914, pp. 118–180, 168–180, 235–247; on the researches of Dr. Spooner (pp. 63, 74, 81–82, 142) see Modi, , ‘Ancient Pataliputra’, in his Asiatic Papers, ii (Bombay, 1917), 211286Google Scholar.

22 Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, xvii, Heft 1, Giessen, 1920.Google Scholar

23 Forties historiae religionum ex auctoribus Graecis et Latinis collecti, Fasciculus 1, Bonn, 1920.

24 In Jackson, , Zoroaster, New York, 1899, pp. 231278Google Scholar; cf. my supplement, ‘Additional Classical Passages Mentioning Zoroaster's Name,’ in Le Muséon, ix (1908),. 811818Google Scholar.

25 Justi, , Iranisches Namenbuch, Marburg, 1896, pp. 6Google Scholar, 48, 491, would read Atradates (‘Fire-given’).

26 Griechischer Roman, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1900, pp. 4754.Google Scholar

27 Hoffmann, , Auszüge arts syrischen Akten persischer Märtyrer, Leipzig, 1880, p. 35Google Scholar; Gray, , Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1913–14, p. 46.Google Scholar