(5) Why won't you accept Jude 14, 15 as a quotation from our Enoch? What I mean is this: you ask for criticism and opinion and your argument on p. 214 does read a little to me as if you had made up your mind beforehand that this couldn't be! But however this may be, do the writer of Enoch the justice to remember that it is all supposed to be written before the Flood: the religious institution of the Sabbath, the Law, the Feasts, are all in the future (p. 218). Only in a vision is there any mention of Israel, or Israelite religion.

(6) One other point. The Bundahish may be the compilation of Vologeses, but such compilations are generally a codification, an arrangement, of previously existing laws, customs, beliefs. The "Græco-Magian" syncretism began, surely, with the conquests of Alexander the Great; if Iranian influence be proved in "Enoch," that in my opinion does not prove the book to be post-Christian, even if the Bundahish (as we have it) be of the first century A.D. I cannot believe that "this combination of Greek and Magian thought took its rise under King Valkash" (p. 223).

Dr. J. L. E. DREYER, Ph.D., Director of the Armagh Observatory: May I take the opportunity to make a few remarks on the first footnote on p. 209.

Ptolemy's system of spheres is described in detail in his "Hypotheses of the Planets." There were forty-one spheres in all, including epicycle-spheres, and eight of these were "moving spheres," one for the fixed stars and seven for the seven planets. The system of spheres was very complicated, as they were not concentric, and nobody would get the idea of either nine or ten spheres from it. It was completely overshadowed by "the Ptolemaic system" of excentric circles and epicycles and was doubtless only designed for the benefit of the weaker brethren, who required something more tangible than a mere mathematical conception of circles.

Ahmed ben Musa in the ninth century wrote a treatise to prove that there was no ninth sphere.

The first mention of nine spheres is in the writings of the Brethren of Purity in the tenth century; it is called the original mover, and a reference is made to the saying in the Koran LXIX "and eight angels carry over themselves the throne of thy Lord." This is next mentioned by Al Betrugi (Alpetragius) at the end of the twelfth century. The idea was evidently derived from

Aristotle's рTоv oŵμa, though that had not been supposed to be anything but the sphere of the fixed stars itself.

After Al Betrugi the belief in the ninth sphere or Primum Mobile seems to have become established. The tenth sphere of Dante is a purely theological idea, but in the system of King Alfonso of Castille the eighth sphere produces the (imaginary) irregularity of the precession of the equinoxes, the ninth the progressive motion of these, and a tenth is introduced as primum mobile.

Whatever be the age of the "Slavonic Enoch," the passage in question must date from the second half of the Middle Ages.

LECTURER'S REPLY TO WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS.

I will take Professor Burkitt's letter paragraph by paragraph. (1) A “true traveller's tale" implies a real traveller as well as a real tale. Some man must have experienced Arctic conditions before they could have been correctly described. The Iranians called the man who did this "Yim." It is immaterial whether he called himself by that name or not.

(2) I thank Professor Burkitt for his correction, and have altered the word "Hebrew" into "Aramaic."

(3) Here again I have acted in accordance with Professor Burkitt's suggestion, and have deleted the sentence which he has criticized.

(4) With regard to the nationality of the author of Slav. En., I necessarily accepted, as a preliminary hypothesis, Dr. Charles' view that he was a Jew. I did not come across anything in the book which seemed to me to give serious reason for changing this view, and the references to "chalkhydres" and to animals with crocodile heads, appeared to show a connection with a Greek-speaking people on the Nile. But when I came to the conclusion that Slav. En. was by a late astrologer, I knew that--as the Jews themselves might express it he was external" to both the Jewish and the Christian faiths. For an astrologer is necessarily a believer in spiritual influences from the stars and planets directing the destiny of men: in other words, he was practically a pagan, and therefore neither faithful Jew nor faithful Christian. I was not concerned to decide whether he ought to have been "cast out of the synagogue" or excommunicated from the Church.”

(5) With regard to Eth. En. I am sorry that my argument on p. 214 reads as if I had already made up my mind. I thought I was

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merely stating as plainly as possible the problem that lies before us for solution. There are three possible solutions: St. Jude may have invented the prophecy; or the author of Eth. En. may have done so; or it may have been current before the time of either. This last solution is the one I am myself inclined to accept. St. Jude need never have come across Eth. En., nor the author of Eth. En. have ever read St. Jude's Epistle.

(6) The Græco-Magian syncretism of which I speak on p. 223 is not a general influence but a particular one. I wrote "This combination of Greek and Magian thought"; it was the frank adoption of the astronomical system due to Hipparchus to which I was referring. This could not have taken place much before the date of the compilation of the Bundahis.

I am greatly indebted to Dr. Dreyer for his comments, and supported by the facts that he brings forward, venture now to record the opinion which I lacked the courage to express before; viz., that Slav. En., so far from being a pre-Christian work is not only a Mediæval production, but a late one at that.

A. S. D. MAUNDER.

568TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD IN THE SMALL HALL, THE CENTRAL HALL, WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, APRIL 19TH, 1915, AT 4.30 P.M.

T. G. PINCHES, ESQ., LL.D., M.R.A.S., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed.

The SECRETARY announced the election of Mr. John Lee and Mr. J. Norman Holmes as Associates of the Institute.

The CHAIRMAN introduced the Rev. James Hope Moulton, M.A., D.Lit., D.C.L., D.D., D.Theol., Greenwood Professor of Hellenistic Greek, and Indo-European Philology, Manchester University, and invited him to deliver his address on "The Zoroastrian Conception of a Future Life."

THE ZOROASTRIAN CONCEPTION OF A FUTURE LIFE. By the Rev. Professor JAMES HOPE MOULTON, D.Lit., D.C.L., D.D., D.Theol.

TH

HE Parsees, the modern exponents of Zoroastrianism, are a small community, less than 100,000 in number, who are to-day mostly concentrated in Bombay and its neighbourhood. They found a refuge in India centuries ago, having been driven out of Persia, their own country, by the murderous hordes of invading Islam. The faith for which in Persia they had bravely endured a bloody persecution, to preserve which unsullied the faithful remnant of them were ready to leave their own land and go forth into the unknown, is almost as old as Judaism, and for loftiness and purity of doctrine towers high above all non-Christian religions with that same exception alone. It is, as its Founder left it, absolutely monotheistic, free from any unworthy views of God, earnest and practical, and untainted by asceticism; and if in later times it fell below its Founder's too lofty ideals, and became corrupted with ritualistic puerilities and a worship of saints and angels which seriously compromises monotheism, it may be doubted whether it goes beyond the corruptions of Christianity in many of the more superstitious corners of modern Europe. The Parsees to-day are the most enlightened and progressive community among the natives of India, charitable and public-spirited, and free from

all the ethical shortcomings which are chargeable upon Hinduism and Islam alike. They refuse to accept proselytes; and they do but little to cultivate intensively a faith which in its primitive purity might be made a real power for the uplifting of its people. They tend to religious indifference, and a great many of them know but little of their own heritage. Under the stimulus of Western interest in and study of their ancient faith, they are improving in this respect; but secularism of practice is a conspicuous peril among them, as it is in the nominally Christian communities of the West.

So much of introduction seems demanded, but I pass from it with relief, inasmuch as I can here only speak at second hand : I have never been in India, and have studied the early history of this great religion to the practical exclusion of its later developments. Before I pass to the special heading of this paper, I must add a few words of summary to explain my presuppositions. I do not set these down as objective facts in all cases, for the evidence has been very differently read. The arguments by which I support my own reading have been set forth, first summarily in a little book in the "Cambridge Manuals" series, Early Religious Poetry of Persia, and then with considerable elaboration in my Hibbert Lectures on Early Zoroastrianism. The latter work contains a translation of the primitive classics of Zoroastrianism, the Gathas or Hymns of Zarathushtra, together with a few Greek texts which contain valuable information for our purpose. To this book I may perhaps refer any present who wish to know on what authority I make sundry statements which are necessarily dogmatic in form because of lack of time.

I shall keep to the original name of the prophet whom the Greeks and Romans called Zoroaster. Most people probably know the name Zarathushtra from the title of a notorious book by Nietzsche, who took this name in vain, as he took others that are holier. I need not inform you that Zarathushtra himself never sat for his portrait to Nietzsche, and that if you have read Also sprach Zarathustra you will find nothing in this paper to remind you of that rather fascinating but eminently mischievous book. The time of Zarathushtra's mission is much disputed. Parsee tradition dates him 660 to 583 B.C., but opinion seems to be strengthening in favour of an earlier time; and we shall probably be not far out if we conceive of him as dating back to the tenth century or so. He was possibly a native of Media, but his prophetic activity was much further east; and the seclusion of his labours in a region very far from