Judaism
Zoroastrian Influences on Judaism and Christianity 2.2
Abstract
Numerically considered, Zoroastrianism is today the smallest of the world’s living religions… Yet it lives, unrecognized, in the churches of its successful rivals and quietly influences their most cherished doctrines.Charles Potter
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Thursday, December 14, 2000
Abstract
Zoroastrian Cosmogony
Ahuramazda was light and life and created all that was good and pure—truth, law and social order. He was “Lord”, “The Wise Lord”, the “All Father”, as creator, “The First and the Last” and “The Father of the Good Thought”:
I conceived of thee, O Mazda, in my thought that thou, the first art the last—that thou art Father of Good Thought, for thus I apprehended thee with mine eye—that thou didst truly create Right, and art the Lord to judge the actions of life. (Yt 31:8)
The Zoroastrians believed that the world as created by Ahuramazda was perfect, with no evil. Ahuramazda was the Lord of Wisdom that the priests considered filled them with Holy Sprit, Spenta Mainyu, if they were worthy. There is one primeval plant, animal and man from which all others are made. The first man Gayo Maretan had no illness, no hunger and no thirst. The sun was fixed in the sky at noon, so there was no time.
Nature was the good creation of the god, Ahuramazda. The English word “paradise” is from the Avestan “Pairidaize” and it is worth noting that the Garden of Eden of Genesis in the Septuagint is called “paradise” in its sinless condition before the fall. Indeed, “Garden” is perhaps from the Avestan “Garod-man” meaning house of songs—the ancient Aryan name of heaven. Is it also just a strange “coincidence” that Ahuramazda, like Yehouah, created the world in six stages (days?) covering the sky, water, earth, plants, animals, and mankind?
Zoroaster saw two primeval spirits as twins in opposition. Ahuramazda was Spenta Mainyu and the other spirit was Angra Mainyu, who is the original Satan and the reason why righteous people suffered. But Spenta Mainyu elsewhere seems to exist independently. The Holy Spirit of the Jewish god is just the same, and then the Christians extended the concept to the Son, who is the Father, but acts independently. The son of Ahuramazda was Mithras!
Western scholars in the nineteenth century thought Ahuramazda was the father of both spirits and the Parsees of India, influenced by then by Christian missionaries were glad to agree. They argued the Evil Spirit is actually one of the two aspects of Ahuramazda himself—he calls them, in the Gathas, “my spirits”—the other being the Holy Spirit, which initiated Righteous Creation by “speaking it!” Identification of the Holy Spirit with Ahuramazda himself is a misinterpretation of the prophet who calls Ahuramazda the “Holiest Spirit” so that it was not difficult for people to think he meant the “Holy Spirit”. In the passage in which he makes this reference to Mazda as the holiest spirit he also declares him to be a god beyond the universe—a transcendental god:
The Holiest Spirit chooses Right, he that clothes himself with the massy heavens as a garment. (Y 30:5)
The implication is that Ahuramazda is beyond the heavens which are merely his outer manifestation, his clothing or girdle. Interestingly, the planets were considered chained demons but the constellations, being aspects of the sun, were helpful entities. In the later development of the religion, Ahriman is identified with the Evil Spirit, and Ahuramazda himself with the Holy Spirit. The advantage Ahuramazda had over Ahriman was that he only of the two could see the future and therefore have confidence in his ultimate victory. Ahriman was banished to hell from where he continued to foment trouble for the world through his armies of demons.
However, contrary to this view that Ahura mazda had two sides to his character, the scholarship of Professor Boyce, who has spent her adult life studying Zoroasatrianism and is adamant that the original concept was entirely dualistic, must be upheld. The fact that an attempt was made later to explain why there were two equal twins by inventing Zurvanism tends to back her up. If they are already aspects of Ahuramazda there is no need for it.
This admission of an independent evil god is abhored by Christians, but it means that the Zoroastrian god is entirely good, a claim that cannot be made about the Jewish god, whatever the Clappies might think (Isa 45:7). Evil is alien to Ahuramazda and he has to defeat it. In Judaeao-Christian mythology, god somehow lets evil into the world as a by-product of free-will, then has to sacrifice himself to be rid of it, though as yet there is no sign of it going! Zoroaster seemed to know that in practice the dual principle was a question of human choice, and he poses it as exactly that, but those who chose right had to be rewarded and the ones who chose evil punished, so he invented the cosmic battle in which we all participate throughout history until the Good are rewarded in eternity, but not the Evildoers.
Zoroastrianism presumes the existence of the two opposing principles, but they live in the Spirit World where they cannot interact with each other. Ahuramazda created the tangible, material world as a good world—the material world is good, having been created by the Holy Spirit. The Evil Spirit then contends with the Good Creation within it! It does not make an entirely separate Evil Creation of its own, its aim is precisely to spoil the Creation of the Holy Spirit. This is the opposite of Orphic, Gnostic, Christian and Manichaean ideas that make the world utterly evil and corrupt, and suitable only for cosmic destruction.
Boyce is emphatic that Ahuramazda did not stand above the Holy and Evil Spirits. Nowhere, she insists, in the original Zoroastrian tradition is Ahuramazda anything other than equal to the Holy spirit, and the Evil Spirit is his adversary, equal too in all but one respect to do with time. Ahuramazda had foresight, but Angra Mainyu had none.
The Evil Spirit can only react whereas the Good Spirit has foresight, the only advantage it has over its twin. Ahuramazda exists before the Evil Spirit is aware of him. Ahuramazda, with his foresight now sees what is happening and what the outcome will be. He offers the Evil Spirit a truce, but is refused. Ahuramazda creates his spiritual world and then Ahriman catches on and creates his own spirits, taking a fixed time of 3000 years. The Slavonic Enoch expresses perfect Zoroastrianism:
Before anything was, before all creation came to pass, the Lord established the Aion of Creation. Thereafter he created all His Creation, the visible and the invisible.
Then before anything else happens, Ahuramazda suggests to the Evil Spirit that they battle for similar fixed times and, lacking foresight, Ahriman agrees. Mithras, who has already been created as the God of Covenants, watches over the agreement. Ahuramazda creates the physical world in six steps, and the fravashis, taking another 3000 years. The Evil Creation takes another 3000 years. This is the first part of the era of battle between good and evil.
When plants appeared in the Aryan Creation, they first appeared as an unusual tree that had all the other plants within it. The Evil Spirit poisoned it but Ameretet caught it as it withered and made the seeds of all plants from it. This suggests a memory of tree worship. Xerxes, according to Herodotus, decorated a magnificent plane tree on his way to war with the Greeks, and Xenophon says a gold and jewelled sculpture of a plane tree was venerated at the Achaemenian court (possibly an image of the Primeval Tree). Several Zoroastrian sacred sites in Persia consisted of a sacred tree by a sacred spring. Tree cults were popular in India, so this looks to be the living residue of ancient Aryan tree worship. European Indo-Eupopeans such as the Scandinavians and Saxons worshipped trees, as did the Celtic Druids. Decorating our own familiar Christmas tree could hardly be a more ancient Pagan practice. The decorations are supposed to remind the tree of how it is in full fruit, and prepare it for awakening again for a new season in spring. It comes from Germany but Luther is said to have revived the custom from what he had read about Zoroastrianism.
The fifth creation was that of animals beginning with a primeval bull that was slain. It is a memory of ancient bull sacrifice to fertilize the ground. The seed of the slain primeval bull, taken and purified by the moon eventually provides a rebirth for all the animals, but also all the plants again! The Ox-soul was the soul of the original bull from which the seed of all animals came and to which their souls return in unity at the end. It seems that in Zoroastrianism, the bull was still sacrificed at the autumn festival of Mithras, a re-enactment of the primeval sacrifice, replenishing the earth for the following spring. The Evil Spirit killed the bull, apparently an evil deed, but, in the Zoroastrian myth, Ahuramazda turned evil into good, in generating the variety of life from the evil act. So re-enacting the evil deed invites the good deed of fecundity to follow.
On the opposite bank of a primeval river, in the legend, lived Gayo Maretan, the primeval man. He is not really a man, judging from his description, but a notional seed of man, and his name means “Mortal Life”. His fate is also to be poisoned by the Evil Spirit only to yield up the whole variety of mankind from his spores purified by the sun and then released by a rhubarb plant. So, mankind was the sixth Creation.
This Great River, and a Great Sea that appears in Aryan myth cannot be certainly identified now, but seem likely to be the Volga and the Caspian Sea or the Don and the Black Sea. The Airyanem Vaija (Aryan Expanse) will be the Eurasian Steppes.
Ahuramazda creates things by thinking them. The concept of God’s Logos is more than his Word because it implies reason or thought, thus approaching the Iranian idea. Yasht 44:7 (cf Isa 44:5) speaks of the Creator of all things through “Bounteous Spirit”. The word “Bounteous” is a deliberate choice by the translators to maintain the Jewish scriptures as unique. “Spenta” is better translated as “Holy” as Boyce admits rather than “Bounteous”. All of the Good Creation of Ahuramazda is “Holy”, an idea that was disastrously lost in Christianity, which rather sees the material world as evil, as the Gnostics did. “Amesha” literally means immortal, being exactly the same word, and so the Ameshas were immortals or gods. Yasht 31:8 refers to Ahuramazda as the “beginning and the end”.
So, discovering the perfect creation of Ahuramazda via his Good Spirit, the Evil Spirit attacked the world and caused evil to appear, disease and illness and old age, and plants, animals and the first man started to die, night began to fall, the evil brood of animals appeared, snakes, insects and cats. The material Creation was static consisting of only the primeval creatures, but it was then attacked by the Evil Spirit who killed the primeval man, bull and plant thus introducing death into the world. But the death of the primeval ones only provided the seed for the creation of the plants, animals and humanity. The sacrifice of life brought forth more life, and the fact that the Evil Spirit had inadvertantly sacrificed was a result of his great lack—foresight. The world was now mortal and therefore changing through death and re-birth, and devout sacrifice helped keep life going for the Good Creation. Zoroastrianism does not see the world as the domain of the Evil God—it was created and remains the Good Creation of Ahuramazda.
C S Lewis in his fantasies shows the world as being assailed by evil from outside. That is like the Zoroastrian idea. In Zoroastrianism, the cosmic battle cannot be fought on the cosmic level, so it is fought on the material plane. This battleground exists only for the period of limited time, called the “Time of Long Dominion”. In this time, which is really the history of the material world, the spiritual creation occurs, then the corporeal one, and the battle ensues. The ice age broke on the ancient Aryan home and the onrush of winter, sent by the Evil One caused the great migration to the south, to Iran and India, and the southwest, to Greece and the countries of Europe, beginning human history—it did too!
The Evil Spirit created death when Ahuramazda created life and went on to create all that is evil as the opposites of good things, like darkness, filth, sin, sodomy, menstruation, pests and vermin like ants, flies, locusts, rats and mice, serpents—everything that plagued people and stop earth from being Paradise. Satan was the “Lord of Darkness” and hell, and of all the evil spirits that lived everywhere, the spiritual equivalent of earthly flies and rats, pestering, annoying and tempting people to commit crime and sin. So it will continue, the battle progressing until the end of history. Then the world will be returned to its original perfect state, endless time begins and everything remains perfect for eternity. This is the “Third Time”.
Death and filth were both the work of the Evil Spirit, so Persians considered dead bodies as unclean. Uncleanliness was subject to penalties under Persian law, so a crime as dastardly as defiling the king’s throne by sitting on it, even accidentally, was death. Persians took this uncleanness so far they were concerned not to defile the elements—earth, water, wind and fire, which they revered—with dead bodies so did not bury, burn or immerse them. The dead were exposed on a mountain side to be eaten by wolves and vultures, then special silent towers were built for the same purpose. The bones were later collected and placed in ossuaries in rock tombs.
The religion they introduced to Jerusalem had the same obsessions with cleanliness but seems to have forgotten the reason—the association of the devil with filth. The Rabbis today say cleanliness laws are for hygienic reasons. The clear advantage in those days of having a fear of filth was that it kept people inclined to be healthy and free of diseases, and the Persians were, but these people, Jews or Zoroastrians, knew little of hygiene.
Zoroaster was sent by Ahuramazda to reaffirm the ancient faith that was known to Yima Khshaeta and before him, the first man Gayo Maretan, and to unveil new revelations. Zoroaster is born at 9000 years to give his revelations to strengthen the forces of the Good Creation in Humanity. He was the first prophet and would be followed by three saviours.
Each millennium thereafter a saviour is born until history ends at 12,000 years. Because evil was falsely introduced into Ahuramazdas’s perfection, when the final saviour comes, the world will be purged of it by fire, a feature also of old German mythology. There is some hint of a cosmic battle at the end when the armies of Good and Evil meet, but the main battleground is the material world, and nothing suggests otherwise. Paradise will be established on earth, in the form of the kingdom of Ahuramazda—the kingdom of God. The mightiest words in the religion are in the Ahunavar which ends:
God’s kingdom will come.
The call for a saviour appears as “may righteousness be embodied” (Yt 43:16) and “one greater than good” (Yt 43:3) was to follow him. He was to be a descendant of Zoroaster, just as the Jewish Saviour was to be of the seed of David, so not divine but fully human, again like the Jewish messiah, but not like the Christian one. Nevertheless, he was to be miraculously conceived, from the preserved seed of Zoroaster, by a virgin who bathes in the holy lake where the seed is kept. He therefore continues the role given in the Zoroastrian scheme of salvation to humanity itself as opposed to gods. The saviours would be men, even if rather unusual ones.
Zoroastrianism attributes to man a distinguished part in the great cosmic struggle. It is above all a soteriological part, because it is man who has to win the battle and eliminate evil.M Molé
The division of world history into twelve periods in Jewish apocalyptic is another reflexion of its Zoroastrian roots. Though this full scheme is from late Zoroastrian books, it is confirmed in outline by the Gathas.
The implication of the Gathas is that this time will be “soon” as it is for Christians, and Zoroaster seemed to think he would be the Saoshyant. The word is also used in the past tense and in the plural implying that there had been or would be others besides himself, showing either that Zoroaster thought the previous Saoshyants had already been, or that it was also used of a good man—a saint. Later, it became an aim for Righteous men to be known as a Saoshyant through devotion and good praxis.
The Fate of the Soul
For Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda had revealed a message that was a matter of “life and death”—the fate of the soul after death. It depended on its earthly existence. A person’s every act, word and thought affects the judgement of their soul after death. The sum total of anyone’s thoughts, words and deeds determine the fate of their soul in the other world.
Everyone’s life falls into two parts—its earthly portion and that which is lived after death. At the “Last Judgement”, the record of people in life is judged, but meanwhile many people will have died. This is where the idea of heaven comes in, as a place for the Righteous to tarry until the end of “Time of Long Dominion”. This is the proper belief of Christianity, but they have abandoned it for a spiritualism, so simplistic and popular that ministers and priests dare not correct it. The lot assigned to anyone after death is the result and consequence of their life upon earth. Works on earth are strictly reckoned in heaven by Mithra, assisted by the spirit of justice. All the thoughts, words and deeds of each are entered in the book of life as credits—all the evil thoughts, words and deeds, as debts. After death the soul arrives at the Cinvato peretu, or accountant’s bridge, over which lies the way to heaven. Here the statement of his life account is made out. The souls of people were judged on their deeds in life and divided into three categories. If they has a balance of good works in their favour, they were righteous and passed forthwith into paradise and the blessed life. If their evil works outweighed their good, they have chosen the Lie and were cast into the Abyss of torment and woe, falling under the power of Evil, where “the pains of hell are his portion for ever”. Should the evil and the good be equally balanced, the soul passed into an intermediary stage of existence, a type of pugatory, and its final lot is not decided until the last judgement.
The course of inexorable law cannot be turned aside by any sacrifice or offering, nor yet even by the free grace of God. Ahuramazda had appointed these rules out of his grace to humankind but he was not subject to whims and fancies so would not bend to entreaties of any kind. Zoroaster made no allowance for repentance and remission of sins, though Zoroasatrian churches now do, perhaps influenced by Christianity. An evil deed could never be struck out by any means, repentence, indulgences, prayer or god’s fancy. Wicked actions cannot be undone, but an evil deed in the heavenly account can be atoned for by a surplus of good deeds. Once evil was done, it was entered into the Book of Life and the best that the evildoer could then do in life was to try to balance it out with sufficient good work to merit a favourable judgement.
In several places in the Avesta but notably Vendidad 19:27ff, Ahura Mazda answers Zarathustra’s question about the fate of the soul after death. While the demons responsible for putrefaction attack the dead body, for three days and nights the soul lingers, one each for Good Deeds, Good Words and Good Thoughts, and on the dawn of the fourth day, when Mithras appears on the mountains as the sun rises, it departs. If the good outweighs the bad, the soul passes on to heaven. If the bad outweighs the good, the soul falls into the abyss for punishment until the general resurrection and last judgement.
Zoroastrians had no reactionary idea of original sin. The Wise Lord would reward the good act, speech and thought, and punish the bad—people were judged in heaven for their works on earth. Mithras was the heavenly judge, a role that later Christ assumed. Everyone’s works and deeds were entered in a Book of Life as a balance sheet of credits and debits upon which the judge would pass his judgement.
The dead soul journeyed to the bridge to heaven where the book was opened. The honest and the deceitful have both to be assessed at the account-keeper’s bridge where their deeds are measured. Each person meets his actions in life (Daena) in the form of a fifteen year old girl who is more beautiful or ugly depending on the balance of the person’s good and bad deeds, though this girl is merely an illumination in Vendidad 19:27. The girl is likely to be the origin of the houris of the Moslem paradise.
The account-keeper’s bridge has many paths across, some being broad and some as narrow as a razor’s edge. The truthful souls take the broad routes and the lying souls have to try to balance their way across on the narrow routes. The truthful are therefore able to cross into heaven easily but the false find it impossible to cross and fall into the Abyss. The concept of the bridge will be based on the rainbow, seen as a bridge to heaven, and appears in Islam as the Arch of Al-Sirat.
The souls of ones with a positive balance walked across into paradise, first the heaven of good thoughts, good words and good deeds and then to the final destiny, the House of Songs, the home of Ahura Mazda—paradise. Those with a negative balance fell into the chasm or Abyss to suffer the pains of hell—not eternal torture in flames but, in the later tradition, 9000 years of intense loneliness in the frozen northern wastes. The mistaken idea of eternal burning comes from the fate of the wicked world at the End of Time when the Last Judgement occurred.
Clear is this all to the man of wisdom as to the man who carefully thinks—he who upholds Truth with all the might of his power, he who upholds Truth the utmost in his word and deed, he, indeed, is thy most valued helper, O Mazda Ahura!Yasna, 31-22
No bad thoughts, words, and deeds, are ever forgiven. Everyone is free to choose between Truth and Lies, between Good and Bad, but the choice has grave consequences. There is no relief from this by intercession, prayer, incantations, magic formulae, belief in any favoured doctrine or being born into any particular ethnic grouping. God has laid out His rules and they shall apply to all dead souls without favour.
Humanity does not have this knowlege and is too easily ensnared by the evil powers. People cannot distinguish between truth and lies, and so Ahuramazda in his grace sent a prophet to lead them by the right way, the way of salvation. Zoroaster was fit for the mission, and felt within him, the call of Ahuramazda. In calling him, Ahuramazda was making a last appeal to humanity before The End. Like John the Baptist, Jesus and his apostles, Zoroaster thought the fulness of time was near, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He often spoke directly with God and His archangels. Zoroaster called himself a prophet (manthran), a priest, and a saviour (saoshyant, the helper of those come to be judged by their deeds).
The Gathas say little regarding ritual practices of Zoroastrian doctrine. The Gathas are essentially eschatological—revelations concerning the last things, future lot whether bliss or woe, concerning human souls, promises for true believers, threats for misbelievers, and confidence that the future will be triumph of the good.
