The identity of Bacchus and Zoroaster is still further proved by the epithet Pyrisporus, bestowed on Bacchus in the Orphic Hymns. When the primeval promise of Eden began to be forgotten, the meaning of the name Zero-ashta was lost to all who knew only the exoteric doctrine of Paganism; and as "ashta" signified "fire" in Chaldee, as well as "the woman," and the rites of Bacchus had much to do with fire-worship, "Zero-ashta" came to be rendered "the seed of fire"; and hence the epithet Pyrisporus, or Ignigena, "fire-born," as applied to Bacchus. From this misunderstanding of the meaning of the name Zero-ashta, or rather from its wilful perversion by the priests, who wished to establish one doctrine for the initiated, and another for the profane vulgar, came the whole story about the unborn infant Bacchus having been rescued from the flames that consumed his mother Semele, when Jupiter came in his glory to visit her. (Note to OVID'S Metam.)
There was another name by which Zoroaster was known, and which is not a little instructive, and that is Zar-adas, "The only seed." (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis) In WILSON'S Parsi Religion the name is given either Zoroadus, or Zarades. The ancient Pagans, while they recognised supremely one only God, knew also that there was one only seed, on whom the hopes of the world were founded. In almost all nations, not only was a great god known under the name of Zero or Zer, "the seed," and a great goddess under the name of Ashta or Isha, "the woman"; but the great god Zero is frequently characterised by some epithet which implies that he is "The only One." Now what can account for such names or epithets? Genesis 3:15 can account for them; nothing else can. The name Zar-ades, or Zoro-adus, also strikingly illustrates the saying of Paul: "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ."
It is worthy of notice, that the modern system of Parseeism, which dates from the reform of the old fire-worship in the time of Darius Hystaspes, having rejected the worship of the goddess-mother, cast out also from the name of their Zoroaster the name of the "woman"; and therefore in the Zend, the sacred language of the Parsees, the name of their great reformer is Zarathustra--i.e., "The Delivering Seed," the last member of the name coming from Thusht (the root being--Chaldee--nthsh, which drops the initial n), "to loosen or set loose," and so to free. Thusht is the infinitive, and ra appended to it is, in Sanscrit, with which the Zend has much affinity, the well known sign of the doer of an action, just as er is in English.