neutrino_cannon
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This is a paper of relative importance to me. Please point out any glaring errors.
Zoroastrianism has about an eighth of a million adherents today. Prior to the downfall of the Sassanid Empire at the hands of the Umayyad Caliphate, Zoroastrians were relatively common in Iran and China. While a few remain in Iran, they are totally unknown in China (although a few of their temples still attest their presence there), and a significant number known as Parsis live in India (Encylcopedia Britannica). Otherwise Zoroastrians are totally absent from their ancestral lands (scattered reports of large numbers of Zoroastrians in Iraq almost certainly refer to the obscure Yazidi sect), having largely converted to Islam in the seventh century during the Umayyad conquest. Because of the time since the conversion of most Zoroastrian lands and the nonconsensual nature of conversion to Islam, it might appear remarkable that there are any Zoroastrians left at all in Iran.
There was, however, a specific exception clause within the more religiously tolerant Abbasid Dynasty (the Umayyad’s immediate successors) regarding certain other faiths, labeled “peoples of the bookâ€. Christians and Muslims were not forced to convert, but could continue to practice their faiths with a certain degree of social autonomy and acceptance, albeit at a higher tax rate. Some Muslim intellectuals, including Imam Malik (a particularly formidable name in the Muslim world), argued that this same exception should be extended to Zoroastrians, which explains their continued existence in Iran, but poses the question of why the Imam thought that Zoroastrians were “peoples of the bookâ€.
The term “people(s) of the book†in Islamic doctrine refers to those whom, according to the Koran, posses divine scriptures (albeit corrupted ones). If this particular legal umbrella was to be extended to Zoroastrians along with other Abrahamic faiths (and Zoroastrianism certainly is not an Abrahamic faith), then there must be some compelling similarity that would induce the Abbasids do so. The similarity is certainly there, as Zoroastrianism shares with the Abrahamic faiths the concept of one supreme good deity opposed to one evil deity, angels, and the concept of the judgment of the soul. Many have then wondered if this similarity is because of more than a coincidence. Indeed, it stretches most credulity to assert that from within the highly diverse pool that is human religion two completely independent faiths with such similar worldviews, especially considering their relative proximity.
The question of whether Zoroastrianism had an effect on Christianity, for indeed that is the logical direction of ideological flow, which might account for the similarity between the two faiths, is a difficult one to answer. There is a great deal of ambiguity regarding the development of both faiths, so much so that it is hard to determine whether Zoroastrianism affected Judaism (and secondarily Christianity), Christianity, or whether all the monotheistic religions of the Middle East were derived from a common source. Religions throughout the world are certainly prone enough to mixing that these are all possible in principle. More evidence is necessary to definitively prove the point.
A final possibility remains that the resemblance between Christianity and Zoroastrianism is in fact coincidental and superficial, and any parallels drawn between the two result from the common elements of all human religions and the human tendency to find patterns where none in fact exist. To prove this would require a vigorous review of the similarities between the two faiths and a thorough demonstration of how these similarities are both inconsequential in a historical context as well as likely to arouse notice. This hypothesis is, along with the others, largely improvable with current information.
Zoroastrianism is usually described as having been founded by the prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster is the Greek rendition of the same). The extent to which Zarathustra merely reformed the region’s existing religion and the extent to which he came up with new material is certainly debatable (Shaked, 2003). Even the time during which he lived is unknown, probably lying somewhere between the fourteenth and sixth centuries BCE. This is clearly a huge extent of time, and the issue is argued vociferously, but the most reasonable conclusion is simply that nobody knows when exactly Zarathustra lived, as most of the arguments are based on rather scanty evidence. Furthermore, very little is known about what early Zoroastrianism was like. The Avesta (Zoroastrian holy book) was probably passed down orally during at least part of its history, and parts probably added, edited and removed. According to Mills (Mills, 1913),
Many interested but necessarily hasty readers of the Zend Avesta overlook
the fact that in the ancient documents comprised under that name we have many works of many different ages.
Furthermore, many of the early Zoroastrian states, especially the Parthians, kept poor or no written records. What is known of their practices is largely from biased Greek, Jewish and Roman sources (Shaked). By the time of solid written records under the Sassanids ca 230 AD, Christianity had already been established, which would preclude a large Zoroastrian role in that religion’s formation, although not necessarily the evolution of its doctrines.
The definitive form of Zoroastrianism under the Sassanids to which Christianity is compared and holds so many parallels is a monotheistic veneration of the supreme God Ahura Mazda. Opposing Ahura Mazda is the evil deity Angra Mainyu, in some variants the twin of Ahura Mazda, and in some others, merely a different manifestation of the same pervasive spirit of creation that generated the universe. According to all Zoroastrians, Ahura Mazda will eventually prevail over Angra Mainyu. Ahunuvaiti 3:5 sums up the ditheism thus:
Of these Twin Spirits, the Evil one chooses doing the worst,
While the most bountiful Holy Spirit of Goodness, clothing itself in the imperishable heavens, chooses Truth and Righteousness.
And so will those who would please God
with righteous deeds, performed with faith in Truth.
Zoroastrianism also incorporates the concept of eternal rewards for just life and final judgment of souls, much like Christianity. Fire is also used extensively in Zoroastrian rituals, so much that many form the misconception that the Zoroastrians are actually praying to the fire. In actuality, fire is merely a symbol for Ahura Mazda, just as the cross is merely a symbol for the Trinity to most Christians.
The case for a strong influence of Zoroastrianism upon Christianity is through Judaism during the Babylonian Captivity (Mills, 1977). In short, many Israelites were conquered by the Babylonians and deported from Judah to Babylon. When Babylon was taken over by the Zoroastrian Persians some sixty years later, the Jews were permitted to go home, where they found people practicing a very similar, but not identical religion who had not been influenced by the long exile, the Samaritans. The disparity between the Samaritans and mainstream Jews shows the likely trajectory of Zoroastrian influence on Judaism, unless their was some prior contact between Jews and Zoroastrians, which is speculative given current evidence. Assuming that the Samaritans represent Judaism sans the influence Zoroastrianism, the influence may be said to be either sweeping or quibbling.
Samaritans number even fewer than Zoroastrians today at a mere 650 or so. Plagued by the same problems of inbreeding and the rejection of converts and most interfaith marriages (although to a much greater extent than the Zoroastrians), their unique faith is nonetheless of interest to many religious scholars. Samaritans only accept the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, to be divine. There are also a few minor differences in wording between the Jewish and Samaritan versions of the Pentateuch. If everything in the Old Testament after the Torah was influenced by contact with Zoroastrians, the difference this makes to Christianity and Judaism would obviously be enormous.
On the other hand, most of the similarities between Judaism and Zoroastrianism are mentioned in the Torah. The faiths’ shared monotheism, belief in angelic agents of divine will, complex laws (c.f. Leviticus and Zoroastrian burial customs), and symbolism of God by fire (c.f. Moses and the burning bush), are clearly pre-exilic. Only the extensive description of the angels as being with distinct personalities, largely in apocryphal or non-canonical texts appears to be particularly Zoroastrian. Once again, however, to suppose that the rest these similarities are completely coincidental appears unlikely.
A possible secondary source of Zoroastrian influence upon Christianity comes through the form of Mithraism (Campbell, 1968). Mithraism originated about the First Century BCE, but became prevalent in Roman life between the second and fourth centuries AD. What little is known about the mystery religion is taken from few contemporary sources and from the inscriptions and other art at mithraea, the temples practitioners of the religion gathered at. Followers of Mithraism, all male, worshipped Mithras, their rendition of Mithra, the Zoroastrian the intermediate between the Supreme God Ahura Mazda and men. A critical distinction was that in monotheistic Zoroastrianism, Mithra was a subservient being to Ahura Mazda, approximately the same as a Christian angel or archangel (or other designation, as the business of categorizing angels became very complicated indeed during the Middle ages (Adams, 2003)). In Mithraism, however, Mithras was a God (Campbell), particularly of soldiers and the sun. Mithraism seems to have been particularly common among roman soldiers, and there is considerable evidence that it was extensively practiced by troops garrisoned at Hadrian’s Wall.
Because of its prominence well after the formation of Christianity, Mithraism was probably a peripheral influence upon Christianity at most. A few early Christian artistic themes resemble Mithraic ones, particularly those involving bulls and descriptions of the archangel Michael (who would occupy approximately the same place as Mithra in the respective Christian and Zoroastrian pantheons). The image of Mithras sacrificing a bull, for example, is echoed in those of Saint Saturnin who was martyred buy being dragged by a bull. In this and a few other cases direct influence from Mithraism to Christianity may be inferred on a few matters of art, but little more is likely. Mithraism was simply too late and too mysterious to outsiders to have had much influence upon Christianity.
There is also the issue of deliberate obfuscation of early Christian and Jewish history. Many people interested in the subject have a clear and biased agenda to depict certain historical faiths in a certain light. Some Christians would resent the view that their faith is merely a derivative of a common theme, rather than a unique revelation of God’s will. Some others would exalt in the chance to do just that. The entire issue is greatly clouded by iconoclasm for iconoclasm’s sake, orthodoxy and closed mindedness regarding religious origins, and a quite limited archaeological basis of evidence.
There is, for example, absolutely no archaeological evidence to support a massive exodus from Egypt when large trash piles and other such evidences of human habitation would be expected from so monumentous an event. While most Jews and Christians do not demand such literal truth of their holy texts for this to be an immediate problem to them, it does raise certain questions as to the absolute veracity of the documents in question as the basis for historical speculation. This certainly frustrates the search for any original source of inspiration for both Zoroastrianism and the Abrahamic faiths.
Finally, there may be no issue to discuss at all. The human mind is famous for its ability to find patterns, even when no patterns conveying intelligible information exist. This phenomenon, termed pareidolia, is what leads people to see the face of Mary in sandwiches, hear that certain rock musicians are dead when their albums are played backwards, and more generally, attribute significance to situations where none exists. If the perceived similarities between Zoroastrianism and Christianity are the result of exaggeration of a few largely insignificant similarities, then there may be no historical connection between the two. Certainly any two religions could be drawn at random and parallels drawn between the two, when in fact there may have been no historical reason for those similarities.
The last suggestion is somehow unsatisfying, and seemingly unfalsifiable. The similarities between Christianity and Zoroastrianism, including a monotheistic system complete with the judgment of souls on the basis of their good or evil, a dualistic battle between good and evil, the concept of angels, certain scriptural laws, and a canonical body of scripture upon which religious decisions and arguments are based, looks entirely too similar to be merely the result of a pattern-finding tendency of human minds.
There is, however, no satisfying answer to the question of whether or not Zoroastrianism exerted a large degree of influence over Christianity, largely because there simply is not enough evidence. The circumstantial argument for a large degree of Persian ideology migrating into Judaism, as well as from Mithraism to early Christianity, is an attractive way to explain the similarities between the two faiths, but gaps and inconsistencies keep both from being the definitive explanation.
Sources Cited
Adams, C. (2003) Did Medieval Scholars Really debate the number of Angels That Could Dance on a Pin? Retrieved April 10, 2005.
Bergstrom, L. G. (1992). Zoroastrianism. In The New Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 502-507). Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Campbell, L.A. (1968) Mithraic Iconography and Ideology The Netherlands: Brill
Mills, L.H. (1977), Zarathustra, Philo, The Achaemenids and Israel, New York: AMS Press.
Mills,L.H. (1913) Our Own Religion in Ancient Persia: Zarathustra and The Bible United States: Open Court Publishing
Shaked, S. (2003), Homer, The Bible and Beyond: Scripture and Exegesis In Zoroastrianism Boston: Brill
