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THe first kind of things (according to Zoroaster) is Eternal, the Supreme God. In the first place (saith Eusebius) they conceive that God the Father and King ought to be ranked. This the Delphian Oracle (cited by Porphyrius) confirms
Chaldes and Iews wise only, worshipping Purely a self-bego••••en God and King.This is that principle of which the Author of the Chaldaick Sum∣mary saith, They conceive there is one principle of all things, and declares that it is one and good.
a 1.1 God (as Pythagoras learnt of the Magi, who term him Oro∣masdes) in his Body resembles Light, in his Soul Truth; That God (according to the Chaldaick opinion) is Light, besides the testi∣mony of Eusebius, may be inferred from the Oracles of Zoroaster, wherein are frequently mentioned theb 1.2 light, beams, and splendor of the Father.
In the same sense they likewise termed God a Fire; for Ur in Chaldee signifying both Light and Fire, they took Light and Fire pro∣miscuously (as amongst many others Plato doth when he saith that God began to compound the whole body of the World out of fire and earth: by which fire he afterwards professeth to mean the Sun whom he stiles the brightest and whitest of things, as if light and fire, bright∣ness and whiteness were all one;) this is Manifest from the Zoroa∣straean Oracles also, wherein he is sometimes called simply fire, sometimes the paternal fire, the one fire, the first fire above.
Upon this ground (doubtlesse) was the worship of Fire insti∣tuted by the Antient Chaldaeans, andc 1.3 from them derived to the Persians; of which hereafter, when we shall come to speak of their Gods and Rel••gious Rites.