The Rise of Moral Obligation
The need to choose between good and evil is one of the precise points where Zoroaster anticipates and perhaps partly instigates the transformations of the Axial Age. Time and again, as our study proceeds, we will encounter the call to make a choice, to align one’s personal existence with the good or the evil, however these are conceived by the axial sages. The Axial Age obligated individuals to accept responsibility for the moral quality of their actions and words.
In the postaxial age, such claims on our lives might seem totally unremarkable; of course we must take moral responsibility for our decisions. But by and large, the call to this kind of personal obligation was novel at this juncture in religious history, because it was connected with new ideas about what it means to be human and divine. Our continuing discussion on Zoroaster’s reform and the influences it had will help verify this point. We will see that, for Zoroaster, the individual’s moral and religious decision now determined the quality of his or her personal destiny. One’s future well-being, especially in the world beyond this one, depended on one’s behavior here and now. This idea is both unique at this moment in history and common across the axial centers.
* * *
Yasna 28.4 quoted in Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (New York: Routledge, 2001), 19.↵
Ezek. 1:1.↵
Yasna 30.3-6 from William W. Malandra, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion:Readings from the Avesta and Achaemenid Inscriptions (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 40.↵
3
Zoroaster’s Legacy
Zoroaster was both a zealous prophet calling for a return to old-time religion and a grand visionary with startling new ideas. The result of his teachings was one of the most compelling and influential worldviews in history. In terms of its effects on other religions, Zoroastrianism may well have had the greatest impact of any single religion in the world. In this chapter, we will continue to explore the novel aspects of Zoroaster’s theology and suggest ways his innovations may have directly and indirectly shaped subsequent religious perspectives.
Zoroaster’s Innovations
There were two areas in which Zoroaster’s thinking yielded enduring effects. The first was his demand for moral responsibility, and the second was his belief in a final destiny for the cosmos.
Choice, Destiny, and Moral Responsibility
As we noted in Chapter 2, Zoroaster greatly simplified Iranian religion. Everything came down to a straightforward, uncomplicated choice: Are you on the side of asha or of druj? He had already made clear which powers were good and which were evil. All that remained was for the individual human being to make a choice, the same way the divine beings had.
But to this choice, Zoroaster added profound consequences. Zoroaster believed that the individual’s ultimate destiny depended on the choice he or she made. How he arrived at this conclusion is far from clear, but he was convinced that one’s final end as a human being depended on whether one sided with the wholly good Mazda or the wholly evil Ahriman. To the modern person, this idea is such a commonplace notion that it seems almost totally unremarkable. Virtually every major religion makes a similar claim. What ultimately becomes of each of us—whether you go to heaven as in Christianity or paradise in Islam, or find nibbana in Buddhism or moksha in Hinduism—is contingent on the moral and theological choices we make in the here and now.
But in the preaxial age, this was a remarkable idea. It was unusual to suggest that the individual human even has a destiny beyond this life. Prior to the Axial Age, such a belief was not widely accepted. Some societies may have held that prominent individuals, such as the king, enjoyed a postmortem existence. But even this idea was rarely well defined and thought out. With the advent of the Axial Age, the view that ordinary individuals might have a destiny in a hereafter became more widely accepted.
But even more uncommon was Zoroaster’s claim that those prospects were dependent on one’s moral choices. Even in cultures that held to some kind of belief in an afterlife, almost never was destiny contingent on moral behavior. One’s after-death future might be predicated on ritual practices—whether or not one had pleased the gods with sacrifices of sufficient quantity and quality—or perhaps on the performance of great deeds such as heroism in an epic battle. But until the Axial Age, we hardly ever find the claim that individual destiny is determined by moral decisions. This is one of the great themes of the axial transformation, and one to which we will continually return. For convenience, we will refer to this motif as “ethicization,” the process whereby certain beliefs and practices are interpreted and understood in moral terms. In the view of Zoroaster, then, we can say the future of the human being has become “ethicized.”
Zoroaster believed that individuals would be judged on the fourth day following their death. He imagined that judgment would take place at High Hara, the first and most sacred mountain on earth, where the great ahuras had their palaces. Individuals found to be good were led to the heavens across a wide bridge accompanied by a beautiful maiden, who was a reflection of their own inner goodness. In the heavens, they enjoyed the company of Mazda and other ashavans. Those who were judged evil had to cross an extremely narrow bridge—the texts say the width of a razor’s edge—and were led by an ugly hag. Inevitably, they fell while crossing and landed in the abyss of hell, where they suffered painfully for their sins in the realm ruled by the Evil One.
Cosmological Drama
But the story does not end there. The assignment to heaven or hell was ultimately only temporary. Zoroaster also envisioned a final cosmic destiny. As he saw it, history—not just individual people, but history itself—was headed in a particular direction. Zoroaster envisioned time moving in a linear fashion, from a specific beginning to an apocalyptic conclusion. The end of the world, he thought, would come as the universal struggle between good and evil came to a head. He thought this final conflict would end in a spectacular battle called the Frashokereti, “the making glorious.” In this war to end all wars, Zoroaster had no doubt that good would prevail and evil would be utterly and forever banished from existence. The Evil One, his minions, hell, and all its human inhabitants would be annihilated, and paradise would be established on earth. Zoroaster may have connected this vision with a bodily resurrection of the dead, in which those who had initially gone to heaven would return to earth to continue life in physical form. If this were Zoroaster’s belief, he would have been among the first—if not the first—to have conceptualized such a fate.
Zoroaster also seems to have expected a savior figure or apocalyptic judge who would appear at the Frashokereti and play a decisive role in it. The ancient Avestan texts refer to this future redeemer-judge as a Saoshyant. According to Zoroastrian prophecy, the Saoshyant would be born from a virgin who had become pregnant by bathing in a lake in which Zoroaster’s semen had been miraculously preserved.
The Power of Zoroaster’s Worldview
These concepts—a grand cosmic struggle between good and evil, history moving toward a final conclusion, the appearance of a redeemer–judge, the resurrection of dead bodies, and the call for humans to choose sides—constitute Zoroaster’s novel ideas. We cannot say for certain that these notions all originated with him; perhaps he was in conversation with like-minded individuals or ancient traditions. But we can say that it was through Zoroaster’s influence and prophetic message that these ideas were widely disseminated among the Iranians.
“These concepts—a grand cosmic struggle between good and evil, history moving toward a final conclusion, the appearance of a redeemer–judge, the resurrection of dead bodies, and the call for humans to choose sides—constitute Zoroaster’s novel ideas.”
What made this vision so compelling to many of Zoroaster’s contemporaries? First, Zoroaster’s vision implied a decisive role for human beings. To Zoroaster, people were not the pawns of the gods. The gods did not intervene and fool with the lives of hapless humans. Peopl
e had a choice to make, and that choice was essential. It determined the individual’s future, and it shaped the cosmic drama itself. The gods were at war, and human beings had to act to ensure that the side of right prevailed. In this way, Zoroaster greatly elevated the importance of human moral responsibility.
But equally important was the way Zoroaster’s vision provided meaning to human suffering and promised ultimate compensation for it. Those suffering from an unkind fate, from the thieves and cattle rustlers, or from illness and deprivation, could see their plight in a much larger context. Their anguish and misery were part of a grand drama involving the entire world, not just bad luck or random happenstance. For their suffering, the righteous would be given ample reparations. Immortal life in paradise, free of any and all evil, would suffice to make earthly suffering seem insignificant by comparison. And those who suffered could be satisfied by the sense that evil ones, too, would receive their just deserts.
Despite the compelling nature of Zoroaster’s theology, the Gathas say Zoroaster was not well received in his own community, a fate he shared with two other great prophets, Jesus and Muhammad.[1] Soon after his rejection, Zoroaster moved to another location and there obtained some success in gathering followers through the patronage of influential persons in the area. He spent the rest of his life preaching and sending missionaries to spread his message, an uncommon practice in the preaxial world. Since it was taken for granted that different societies worshiped different gods, the idea of proselytizing others simply never occurred until the concept of a universal deity or ultimate reality emerged more definitively in the Axial Age.
Eventually, Zoroaster’s message was disseminated throughout West Asia and as far east as China. Along the way, his message met with opposition, and many of his followers were persecuted and killed. The persecutions, however, merely convinced Zoroaster’s followers of the truth of their convictions and effectively strengthened the movement. By the sixth century bce, the Zoroastrian worldview had amassed enough power to function as the state religion of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire and remained the state religion of two subsequent Iranian empires until the seventh century ce, when it was finally displaced by Islam.
Zoroastrian Practices
The various rituals of Zoroastrianism—prayer, purification, and celebrations—were intended to express and reinforce its basic message and theology. A brief survey of some of the more important rites will help complete our picture of this tradition.
Prayer
Zoroaster prescribed one central practice for all of his followers: prayer five times each day. The Indo-Iranians were already accustomed to praying three times a day; Zoroaster added prayer at dawn and midnight to this routine. For the followers of Zoroaster, prayer was to be performed while standing in the presence of fire. The fire might be the sun, if one were outdoors, or the hearth, if in the home. The sun had come to be closely associated with Ahura Mazda. Like their Indo-Aryan relatives, the Iranians maintained the custom of keeping the sacred fires constantly lit. Some Muslims later criticized the Zoroastrians as “fire worshippers,” and they are still sometimes called that in places like India, where they are known as Parsis. Zoroastrians, of course, resent the label, since they understand themselves to be worshiping god, not fire.
Purity Practices
Purity was also extremely important to the Iranians, just as it was to the Indo-Aryans. Activities that could cause ritual pollution included contact with dead bodies, body waste, and animals such as snakes, flies, ants, and wolves. Sickness, menstruation, and childbirth were also believed to contaminate. Since it was regarded as a symbol of the sacred, ceremonies involving fire were performed to restore a pristine state following pollution.
According to Zoroaster, the constituent elements of the world—earth, fire, and especially water—needed to be kept clean and uncontaminated. The Zoroastrians even gave up burial of the dead for fear of befouling the soil, and instead placed corpses in “towers of silence,” exposed to the air to let birds of prey pick the bones clean. The Zoroastrian purity code also included the penalty of death for anyone polluting a sacred fire. Yet at the same time, it allowed the killing of snakes and scorpions, both believed to be demonic animals in league with the daevas.
Celebrations
The Zoroastrians celebrated seven major festivals tied mainly to the rhythms of agricultural life. By far the most important was honoring the new year, which the Iranians called Nowruz, meaning “New Day,” and celebrated at the spring equinox. New Day is still widely celebrated by Iranians (and in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of India) and is one of the oldest continuously celebrated festivals on earth. Nowruz is intended to anticipate the overthrow of the evil ones at the end of time and hence is a very joyful occasion.
The Influences of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism
Much of Zoroaster’s theology must sound familiar to anyone acquainted with the Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Are the parallels among these traditions merely coincidental, or has there been actual historical influence from one tradition to the others? This has been and still is a controversial issue. Many Jews, Christians, and Muslims deny or minimize the significance of the parallels, believing that such comparisons somehow detract from the uniqueness or divine origin of their religion. Nonetheless, many scholars working in this area are convinced that formative Judaism and Christianity, and through them Islam, were shaped, directly or indirectly, by the more ancient Zoroastrian beliefs.
“Many scholars working in this area are convinced that formative Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were shaped, directly or indirectly, by the more ancient Zoroastrian beliefs.”
This influence, however, is difficult to document and prove conclusively because the case would have to be based largely on circumstantial evidence. There are no passages in the Bible or Qur’an that quote from the Gathas or even paraphrase it. While there are examples of such borrowing from other scriptures in West Asia, there is none from Zoroastrianism. Early Jewish and Christian theologians probably never could access any of the Zoroastrian teachings because most of Zoroaster’s religion remained in oral tradition for centuries. The infiltration of Zoroastrian ideas most likely occurred in a much less formal way, as Jews encountered Zoroastrian practitioners and engaged them in conversation and observed their practices.
Although circumstantial, the case for Zoroastrian influence remains persuasive. The argument is a simple one: In the sixth century bce, during the formative period of Judaism, Jews came into contact with the Persian Empire during and after the Exile, or Babylonian Captivity, and thereafter, new ideas—curiously like Zoroaster’s—began to appear in Jewish and then later Christian writings. These ideas were significantly different from the theology of earlier Hebrew writings and bear the traces of outside influences.
Time and History
Consider the linear view of time—the idea that cosmic history has a beginning, middle, and end. This concept is often contrasted with the more common ancient view of time as cyclical, as constantly repeating itself but ultimately going nowhere, a view we will encounter when we get to the traditions of India. The key element of the linear understanding of history is the idea of an end-time. Although there were vague intimations of an eschaton, or end-time, in Jewish writings prior to the Exile, it was only afterward that this theme began to dominate Jewish thought and was accepted as mainstream Jewish theology. And it was most often connected with the idea of a final apocalypse, the end of history brought about by a grand showdown between good and evil and ending in the final judgment of human beings according to their deeds.
The Day of Judgment
The notion of a Day of Judgment did not appear in Jewish theology until the postexilic period. The first appearance of this idea in the Bible was in the books of Ecclesiastes and Daniel, both written after the Jewish contact with the Persian world. The book of Ecclesiastes ends with this verse: “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether g
ood or evil.”[2] The book of Daniel is even more explicit: “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”[3] We hear in these words of Daniel’s vision the same Zoroastrian themes of an apocalyptic end to history, a resurrection of bodies and a day of judgment, and the determination of human destiny based on the moral quality of the individual’s life.
Heaven and Hell
After the Exile, we also see for the first time in Jewish thought the ideas of heaven and hell as ultimate human destinations, the belief in angels and demons, and the concepts of a universal savior and the devil. Obviously, the Bible speaks of heaven from the opening of Genesis, but throughout most of the Bible, heaven simply means the realm of the divine, the place Yahweh inhabits. The idea that human beings might attain everlasting life in the heavenly realm was simply foreign to Jewish thinking prior to the Exile. The “shades,” or disembodied spirits of individuals, were believed to descend to an underworld known as Sheol, where they continued a shadowy quasi-existence. Descent to Sheol was simply in the nature of things; it did not depend in any way on one’s moral character. After Persian contact, however, Jewish thinkers increasingly conceived of an afterlife in either heaven or hell, now understood as a paradise or perdition, respectively. Interestingly, the word paradise, which the later books of the Bible use as synonymous with heaven, derives from the ancient Iranian words pairi-daeza, meaning an “enclosed garden.”
The Age of the Sages Page 5
