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SOME ANCIENT AND EXTINCT FAITHS
of a different nature, on account of their opposing nature, are destroyers and injurers, one of the other, however they come together. Those of a like patare, on account of unanimity and similarity of nature, are lively, efficient, and mutually helping, when they come together” (SBE.
vol, xxiv. 123). What, then, becomes of the omnipotence of Ahura Mazda, if he is unable to keep off Aharman ? The reply is (SBE, vol. xxiv, pp. 124-125): "...The evil deeds of a harman are owing to the evil nature
and evil ill which are always his, as a fieod. The omnipotence of Auhar Mazd is that which is over all that is possible to be, and is limited thereby......If I gay that the creator Auhar Mazd is able to keep Aharman back from the evil which is his perpetual nature, it is possible to change that nature which is demoniacal into a divine one, and that which is divide into a demoniacal one; and it is possible to make the dark light, and the
light dark." - This is simply charming; omnipotence, certainly, does not include the doing of the impossible. Accordingly, Angra Mainyu boasts of his indestructibility in the following remarkable words ;"All the gods together have not been able to smite me down
in spite of myself, and Zarathoshtra alone can reach me in spite of myself. Be smites me with the Ahuna Vairya, as strong a weapon as a stone big as a house ; he burng me with Asha-Vabishta, as if it were melting bran. He makes it better for me that I should leave this earth, he, Spitama Zarathushtra, the only one who can daant me" (SBE. vol. xxiii. pp. 274 and 275).
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