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The faith of the Persian empires and the hidden ancestor of much of Western religion: Zarathustra's vision of a good god at war with a devil gave the world cosmic dualism, angels and demons, heaven and hell, and a final judgment...
The faith of the Persian empires and the hidden ancestor of much of Western religion: Zarathustra's vision of a good god at war with a devil gave the world cosmic dualism, angels and demons, heaven and hell, and a final judgment, ideas that entered Judaism and passed into Christianity and Islam.
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The prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster) preaches a faith centered on one supreme god, Ahura Mazda, locked in cosmic struggle with the spirit of evil. Scholars date him anywhere from 1500 to 600 BCE, but his religion introduced ideas that would reshape all the later faiths of the West.
Zoroastrianism teaches that all of history is a war between the good creator Ahura Mazda and the evil Angra Mainyu, in which every person must choose a side. This dualism of a good god and a devil, of light against darkness, was a new idea in religion.
Under Cyrus and Darius the Achaemenid Persian empire, the largest the world had yet seen, holds Zoroastrian belief. For the first time the religion of the one wise lord governed a superpower straddling three continents.
The Zoroastrian new year Nowruz, held at the spring equinox to mark the renewal of the world, is still celebrated by hundreds of millions of people from Iran to Central Asia. One of the world's oldest festivals of rebirth is still alive.
After Cyrus frees the Jews from Babylon, Jewish thought during the Persian period takes on ideas with strong Zoroastrian parallels: a cosmic evil power (Satan), armies of angels and demons, a heaven and a hell, the resurrection of the dead, and a final judgment. Many scholars see here the hidden root of later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic belief.
The Magi were the Zoroastrian priestly caste; their name gives us the word 'magic', and the wise men who visit the infant Jesus in the Gospel are Magi from the east. A Persian priesthood is woven into the Christian Nativity and the English language alike.
Zoroastrianism looked for a Saoshyant, a future savior who would defeat evil, raise the dead, and renew the world in a final judgment. The pattern of a coming redeemer and an end-time victory echoes through later messianic and apocalyptic religion.
The Sassanid empire makes Zoroastrianism the state church of Persia again and gathers its scriptures, the Avesta. For four more centuries the fire-temples of the wise lord burned across an empire that rivaled Rome.
The Muslim Arab conquest topples the Sassanid empire, and Zoroastrianism slowly gives way to Islam in its homeland. Over the following centuries many of the faithful would flee eastward to India.
Zoroastrian refugees settle in India as the Parsis, keeping the faith alive for a thousand years. Their small community would later found great modern industrial houses such as Tata and Godrej, and produce figures from Freddie Mercury to Zubin Mehta.
Friedrich Nietzsche borrows the prophet's name for Thus Spoke Zarathustra, using the founder of the first good-and-evil religion as the mouthpiece for a philosophy beyond good and evil. The ancient name re-entered Western culture, if not the ancient faith.