Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 46

καὶ δοκεῖ τοῦτο τοῖς πλείστοις καὶ σοφωτάτοις. νομίζουσι γὰρ οἱ μὲν θεοὺς εἶναι δύο καθάπερ ἀντιτέχνους, τὸν μὲν ἀγαθῶν, τὸν δὲ φαύλων δημιουργόν. οἱ δὲ τὸν μὲν ἀμείνονα θεόν, τὸν δὲ ἕτερον δαίμονα καλοῦσιν· ὥσπερ Ζωροάστρης ὁ μάγος, ὃν πεντακισχιλίοις ἔτεσι τῶν Τρωικῶν γεγονέναι πρεσβύτερον ἱστοροῦσιν. οὗτος οὖν ἐκάλει τὸν μὲν Ὡρομάζην, τὸν δʼ Ἀρειμάνιον· καὶ προσαπεφαίνετο τὸν μὲν ἐοικέναι φωτὶ μάλιστα τῶν αἰσθητῶν, τὸν δʼ ἔμπαλιν σκότῳ καὶ ἀγνοίᾳ, μέσον δʼ ἀμφοῖν τὸν Μίθρην εἶναι· διὸ καὶ Μίθρην Πέρσαι τὸν μεσίτην ὀνομάζουσιν. ἐδίδαξε δὲ τῷ μὲν εὐκταῖα θύειν καὶ χαριστήρια, τῷ δʼ ἀποτρόπαια καὶ σκυθρωπά. πόαν γάρ τινα κόπτοντες Μῶλυ καλουμένην ἐν ὅλμῳ, τὸν ᾍδην ἀνακαλοῦνται καὶ τὸν σκότον· εἶτα μίξαντες αἵματι λύκου σφαγέντος εἰς τόπον ἀνήλιον ἐκφέρουσι καὶ ῥίπτουσι. καὶ γὰρ τῶν φυτῶν νομίζουσι τὰ μὲν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ, τὰ δὲ τοῦ κακοῦ δαίμονος εἶναι· καὶ τῶν ζῴων ὥσπερ κύνας καὶ ὄρνιθας καὶ χερσαίους ἐχίνους τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, τοῦ δὲ φαύλου τοὺς ἐνύδρους μῦς εἶναι· διὸ καὶ τὸν κτείναντα πλείστους εὐδαιμονίζουσιν.

The great majority and the wisest of men hold this opinion: they believe that there are two gods, rivals as it were, the one the Artificer of good and the other of evil. There are also those who call the better one a god and the other a daemon, as, for example, Zoroaster the sage, who, they record, lived five thousand years before the time of the Trojan War. He called the one Oromazes and the other Areimanius; and he further declared that among all the things perceptible to the senses, Oromazes may best be compared to light, and Areimanius, conversely, to darkness and ignorance, and midway between the two is Mithras; for this reason the Persians give to Mithras the name, of Mediator. Zoroaster has also taught that men should make votive offerings and thank-offerings to Oromazes, and averting and mourning offerings to Areimanius. They pound up in a mortar a certain plant called omomi, at the same time invoking Hades and Darkness; then they mix it with the blood of a wolf that has been sacrificed, and carry it out and cast it into a place where the sun never shines. In fact, they believe that some of the plants belong to the good god and others to the evil daemon; so also of the animals they think that dogs, fowls, and hedgehogs, for example, belong to the good god, but that water-rats belong to the evil one; therefore the man who has killed the most of these they hold to be fortunate.