Keith, A. Berriedale

Pettazzoni, Raffaele

English

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La Religione di Zarathustra nella Storia religiosa dell' Iran by Raffaele PettazzoniReview by: A. Berriedale KeithThe Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 41, Part 2 (1921), pp. 279-280Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/625507 .Accessed: 04/12/2014 03:49Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. .The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Journal of Hellenic Studies.http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 4 Dec 2014 03:49:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsNOTICES OF BOOKS 279 Muzakhia und Malakastra. By CAMILLO PRASCHNIKER. Pp. 235, 131 illustra- tions. Vienna: The Austrian Archaeological Institute, Alfred Holder, 1920. An archaeological survey, made under war-time conditions, of the district of central Albania centring round the ancient sites of Apollonia and Byllis; the unfamiliar title is taken from the modern Albanian names for the area. A general survey of Albania was under- taken by Praschniker in 1916 and published under the style of Archaeologische Forschungen in Albanien u. Montenegro. In late 1917 he returned for more detailed work on the Apol- lonia sector, 'at once the richest in antiquities and the most exposed to damage by its proximity to the fighting line.' This laudable activity was, however, brought to an abrupt end, and many of the finds were lost. Before this, however, the site of Apollonia was mapped and the walls were examined; some remains of an ornate Flavian temple had been laid bare; the western end of the Via Egnatia was visited; and a collectien of miscellaneous finds of sculptures and inscriptions was installed at Durazzo. Of the sculptures mention may be made of a fifth-century relief with a wrestling scene and of a group of third-century stelae from Apollonia with Erotes and rosettes which surely must be copied from Hellenistic earrings. A mosaic from Durazzo reproduces on a gigantic scale the female head seen on Apulian painted vases; and among the inscriptions we observe the epitaph of Robert de Montfort, banished from England in 1107. Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. By JANE ELLEN HARRISON. Pp. 40. Cambridge: The University Press, 1921. 3s. 6d. This little volume is the sequel to the Prolegomena and Themis. Very briefly and simply Miss Harrison summarises the results to which her long work on the origins of Greek religion have led her. There are three chapters; the first two show that both primitive ritual and primitive theology spring from one common source-' the impulse to the conservation of life.' Chapter I., ' Ritual,' emphasises the group idea as the base of religious notions- first the totem-group, arising out of the social conditions of the early human family, according to Durkheim's view; indissolubly connected with the practice of exogamy in its origin, and bearing in the embryo form of tabu all later notions of sin and sanctity. Then follows the wider idea of the tribal group with its consequent of initiation rites. Out of these groups arises the individual in the shape of the medicine-man or king-god, the ruler and yet the servant of the tribe; lastly there is to be considered the expression of the tribal wish to live, the fertility play or dance, emphasising the sequence of seasons and harvests, of death and resurrection. Chapter II., 'Theology,' traces the development of the idea of a deity; out of a succession of leaders of ritual dances comes the hazy notion of a daimon of the dance; the ritual decays or is no longer believed in, but the daimon lingers on, becoming more dehumanised, more isolated, and thus finally an Olympian deity. Chapter III., 'The Religion of To-day,' compares the primary motives which produced Greek religion with the Immanentist movement of to-day. La Religione di Zarathustra nella Storia religiosa dell' Iran. BY RAFFAELE PETTAZZONI. Pp. xix + 260. Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1920. L. 15. The outstanding feature of Professor Pettazzoni's clear and interesting sketch of the position of Zoroastrianism in the religious history of Iran is the attempt to show that Zarathustra's teaching in its closely allied features of monotheism and universalism was strange to the genius of the people of Iran, and that it was not until the Sassanian period that Zoroastrianism was able, by a process of acceptance of polytheism and nationalism, to attain the rank of the religion of the Persian people. These characteristics of the history of the faith have suggested to the author the further conclusion (pp. 82, 83) that Zarathustra drew his inspiration from a foreign source, which may be found in the teaching of Israelites, deported by the King of Assyria to Media after the fall of Samaria to Sargon II. in 722 B.c. The deportees may have sought to propagate their monotheistic views, and U2 This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 4 Dec 2014 03:49:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions280 NOTICES OF BOOKS the intellectual ferment thus set up may have evoked the monotheism of Zarathustra and his attacks on the daeva worshippers. This view renders it natural to hold that the scene of the prophet's early work lay in Media, and leads the author to deny the traditional view that Zarathustra's patron, Vistaspa, ruled in Bactria, and to hold that Bactria was a late acquisition of the Iranians (p. 75). Ingenious as the theory is, it may be doubted if it can stand serious investigation. That the deportees from Samaria were monotheists anxious to spread their faith is a pure conjecture, and by no means convincing. Moreover, if we accept it, we are bound to adopt a late date for Zarathustra, Now, it is true that one line of tradition would place the activity of Zarathustra in the period 600 B.c., but the value of this tradition is rendered minimal by the fact that we can see the ground of its coming into being, the certainly erroneous identification of Vistaspa, the prophet's patron, with the father of Darius. Every other consideration, and beyond all the extraordinary closeness of the language of the Gathfts to that of the Vedic hymns, tells in favour of a date not later than 800 B.c. and possibly a couple of centuries earlier.1 Nor does it seem wise to seek to trace the Iranian movement as predominantly one from west to east; later history strongly supports the natural assumption which holds that in the Indo-Iranian period Bactria was occupied by pro-Iranians. There is also some measure of exaggeration in deducing (p. 90) the universal character of Zarathustra's faith from his seeking to win Turan over to it; Turan denotes merely the nomad Iranians, and Zarathustra's teaching, despite its nobility, is clearly dominated by conceptions directly due to local surroundings, which must from the first have made it far more difficult to spread his doctrines outside Iran than it was to extend the circle of followers of Buddhism. It is difficult also to follow Professor Pettazzoni in his distinction between the status of Zoroastrianism under the Achaemenidae (pp. 128-130) and its position in the Sassanian kingdom. Whatever may be said of Darius's predecessors, that king was emphatically a devotee of Auramazda, and if, like his successors, he believed also in other gods, the Sassanians were in similar case. Moreover, Zarathustra himself had left the way open for the recognition of inferior deities in his own acceptance of the Amesa Spenta, and at no time can we suppose that his monotheism was ever fully appreciated except in a select coterie. The attempt, which was made by the last Persian dynasty, to associate the revival of the old faith with the new national kingdom evidently failed to extend effect- ively the sphere of Zoroastrianism, as is proved by the success of the Nestorians and the Manichaeans, even when the kingdom could use its temporal power against heresy, and the rapid passing over of Persia to Islam when the Arabs overwhelmed the state. But, whether we accept Professor Pettazzoni's conclusions or not, recognition must be accorded to the value of his discussion and to his command of the literature. A. BERRIEDALE KEITH. Das iranische Erl•sungsmysterium. By R. REITZENSTEIN. Pp. xii + 272. Bonn a. Rh.: A. MARCUs & E. WEBER, 1921. M. 45. Dr. Reitzenstein's latest work vindicates for Iran an important part in the development of the ideas of immortality and of a Saviour in the Jewish and Christian beliefs, thus negativing in essentials the results attained by Dr. J. Scheftelowitz in Die altpersische Religion und das Judentum (1920). The author's views have been largely influenced to his new conclusions by study (pp. 2 -10) of a Zoroastrian fragment which seems to him to contain ideas which afford a clue to the ultimate source of the doctrines expressed by Paul in 1 Cor. xv. An elaborate examination of Manichaean fragments and of the Mandaean Book of the Dead (pp. 43-92) is made to yield the conclusion that it is fundamentally erroneous to seek in Greek philosophical developments the source of dualistic views, which can far more easily be derived direct from Zoroastrianism, and a determined attack is directed (p. 106) against Leisegang's effort to derive the doctrines of Philo from a Greek 1 Compare J. H. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 18 ff.; Hi. Oldenberg, Die Religionen des Orients, p. 91. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 4 Dec 2014 03:49:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

La Religione di Zarathustra nella Storia religiosa dell' Iran

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La Religione di Zarathustra nella Storia religiosa dell' Iran

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