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SOME ANCIENT AND EXTINCT FAITHS
good and evil, and consists in pure Self.Contemplation, but virtue is as much a cause of bondage as vice, the only difference between them being that while the bondage resulting from virtue is less unpleasant and more agreeable, that brought about by vice is intolerable and bitter.
To proceed with the final restoration at the resurrec. tion, it is distinctly said that it will not be a creation of that which liad 110 existence whatsoever, like the attributes arising from the fusion of spirit and matter that neither exist in pure spirit, nor in pure matter, but arise, as it were, miraculously, from nought. So it is said :“ Observe that when that which was not was then produced,
why is it not possible to produce again that which was? for at that time ove will demand the bone from the spirit of earth, the blood from the water, the hair from the plants, and the life from firs, since they were deliver
ed to them in the original creation" (Bundahish, xxx 6). The attributes mentioned are certain properties of spirit which become vitiated by the defilement of matter, and which remain unfunctioning during the condition of impurity.
The idea of Yima's vara explains this principle fully. The legend of this vara is as follows: a great disaster was to come over tlie world; Ahura Mazda employed Yima, the parariise-king, to prepare an enclosure to hold cattle, beasts of burden, useful animals, men and women, of the best and most beautiful kinds, together
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