[Footnote 38: See D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 568,
929;) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, c. 21, p. 290,
291;) Pocock, (Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 70, 71;) Eutychius,
(Annal. tom. ii. p. 176;) Texeira, (in Stevens, Hist. of
Persia, l. i. c. 34.)
Note: Mazdak was an Archimagus, born, according to Mirkhond,
(translated by De Sacy, p. 353, and Malcolm, vol. i. p.
104,) at Istakhar or Persepolis, according to an inedited
and anonymous history, (the Modjmal- alte-warikh in the
Royal Library at Paris, quoted by St. Martin, vol. vii. p.
322) at Wischapour in Chorasan: his father's name was
Bamdadam. He announces himself as a reformer of
Zoroastrianism, and carried the doctrine of the two
principles to a much grater height. He preached the
absolute indifference of human action, perfect equality of
rank, community of property and of women, marriages between
the nearest kindred; he interdicted the use of animal food,
proscribed the killing of animals for food, enforced a
vegetable diet. See St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 322. Malcolm,
vol. i. p. 104. Mirkhond translated by De Sacy. It is
remarkable that the doctrine of Mazdak spread into the West.
Two inscriptions found in Cyrene, in 1823, and explained by
M. Gesenius, and by M. Hamaker of Leyden, prove clearly that
his doctrines had been eagerly embraced by the remains of
the ancient Gnostics; and Mazdak was enrolled with Thoth,
Saturn, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, John, and Christ,
as the teachers of true Gnostic wisdom. See St. Martin,
vol. vii. p. 338. Gesenius de Inscriptione Phoenicio-Graeca
in Cyrenaica nuper reperta, Halle, 1825. Hamaker, Lettre a
M. Raoul Rochette, Leyden, 1825. - M.]