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Liber XXXVI · Zoroastrianism

Liber XXXVI · Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrian Influence on Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Did Zoroastrianism influence Judaism, Christianity and Islam? The evidence for Persian ideas of Satan, angels, resurrection and judgment, and the debate.

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Many historians of religion believe that Zoroastrianism, the ancient faith of Iran, helped to shape Judaism, Christianity and Islam, above all in their ideas of a cosmic adversary, ranks of angels and demons, the resurrection of the dead, a final judgment and the renewal of the world. The case rests on two centuries of Persian rule over the Jews and on striking parallels of doctrine, but it is still debated, because most Zoroastrian texts were written down late and similar ideas can also be explained by developments inside the biblical traditions.

Persia and the Jews: Cyrus, the Exile and the Achaemenid Empire§

The meeting of the two religions began with a political event. In 539 BCE Cyrus II of Persia took Babylon, where the elite of Judah had lived in exile since Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE. Cyrus allowed deportees to return and rebuild their temples, and the Bible remembers him with unusual warmth. The book of Isaiah calls him the Lord's "anointed" — in Hebrew mashiach, the word that gives us "messiah" — the only foreign ruler to receive that title (Isaiah 45). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Persian authority, and the book of Esther is set at the Persian court in Susa.

For about two centuries, until Alexander overthrew the Achaemenid empire in the 330s BCE, Judea was a province of a Persian state whose kings invoked Ahura Mazda. Persian loanwords entered Hebrew and Aramaic: pardes, from an Old Iranian word for an enclosed garden, became the Greek paradeisos, "paradise"; dat, "law", appears in Esther and Ezra. Large Jewish communities remained in Mesopotamia under the Parthians and Sasanians, and the Babylonian Talmud was compiled in a Sasanian, Zoroastrian-ruled land (see rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud). Contact was long and close; what passed across it is debated.

The Case for Influence: Satan, Angels and the Last Things§

Scholars such as Mary Boyce and Norman Cohn argued that several features of post-exilic Judaism look strikingly Iranian. Zoroastrian teaching, as summarised in Ahura Mazda and cosmic dualism, sets a good creator against a hostile spirit, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), who brought death and evil into the world and commands an army of demons (daevas). The good god is surrounded by the Amesha Spentas, the "Holy Immortals", and by worshipful beings (yazatas). History moves towards a final battle, the resurrection of the body, a universal judgment and the "making wonderful" of the world, frashokereti.

Older books of the Hebrew Bible contain little of this. The satan of Job and Zechariah is a member of the heavenly court who tests and accuses, not an independent enemy of God. In the literature of the Persian and Hellenistic periods, however, the picture changes. Angels acquire names and functions; in the book of Tobit the demon who plagues Sarah is called Asmodeus, a name widely derived from the Avestan demon of wrath, Aeshma Daeva. The Dead Sea Scrolls describe a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, and the Community Rule teaches that God created two spirits, of truth and of falsehood, between which humans walk (see the Dead Sea Scrolls). The clearest biblical statement of bodily resurrection, in the book of Daniel (usually dated to the 160s BCE), reads:

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)

For Boyce, who believed Zarathustra lived well before the Persian empire, such ideas were already old Zoroastrian doctrine when the exiles met them. For Cohn, Zarathustra's vision of a world moving from combat to perfection was the ancestor of all Western apocalyptic thought, including the Jewish and Christian kind. The full Zoroastrian picture is described in Zoroastrian eschatology; the evolution of the Jewish and Christian adversary in the history of Satan and the Devil.

The Case for Caution: Dating, Sources and Method§

Other scholars accept contact but doubt that influence can be demonstrated. Their objections are serious.

The late date of the Zoroastrian sources§

The Avesta was transmitted orally for many centuries and was probably first written down in the Sasanian period, perhaps in the fifth or sixth century CE; the oldest surviving manuscript dates only from the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The fullest accounts of resurrection, the saviour and the end of the world come from Middle Persian (Pahlavi) books compiled in the ninth and tenth centuries, after the Islamic conquest. The Gathas, attributed to Zarathustra himself, speak of judgment and of a renewal, but in compressed and difficult poetry. It is therefore possible in principle that some late Zoroastrian formulations were themselves coloured by Jewish, Christian or Manichaean neighbours.

Internal and alternative explanations§

Many apocalyptic themes can also be traced to the Near Eastern combat myth, to Canaanite and Mesopotamian traditions, to prophetic hopes born of the exile, and to Greek ideas of the soul. Parallels are not proof of borrowing, and the boldest advocates of Persian influence were sometimes accused of treating resemblance as genealogy.

The present consensus is cautious. Most specialists accept that the Persian period let Iranian ideas circulate, that some items (loanwords, the demon Asmodeus, perhaps the two opposed spirits) are likely Iranian, and that the wider turn to dualistic, eschatological thinking had several sources, of which Iran was one.

Zoroastrianism and Christianity§

Christianity inherited the apocalyptic Judaism of the Second Temple period, with its devil, angels, resurrection and last judgment, so whatever Iranian elements that Judaism carried passed into the new faith. The Gospel of Matthew also gives Persia a direct place in the Christian story: the Magi who follow the star to Bethlehem bear the title of the Iranian priesthood (Matthew 2; see the Magi). Early Christian writers often presented them as Zoroastrian sages who recognised Christ, and later legend made Zarathustra a prophet of his coming.

Contacts continued. The Syriac-speaking Church of the East lived inside the Sasanian empire, sometimes tolerated and sometimes persecuted, notably under Shapur II, and ninth-century Zoroastrian works such as the Shkand-gumanig Wizar ("Doubt-Dispelling Exposition") argue against Christian doctrine. In the third century the prophet Mani combined Zoroastrian dualism with Christian and Buddhist elements in a new world religion, discussed in Manichaeism and Mandaeism. Through Manichaeism, and later through medieval movements such as the Cathars and Bogomils, a radical dualism that Christian orthodoxy rejected kept reappearing on its fringes.

Zoroastrianism and Islam§

The Qur'an mentions the Majus, the Magians, once, listing them alongside the believers, the Jews, the Sabians and the Christians as communities between whom God will judge on the Day of Resurrection (Surah 22, al-Hajj, verse 17). After the Arab conquest of Iran in the 630s–650s, jurists debated their status. In practice Zoroastrians were treated much like the "People of the Book", allowed to keep their religion in return for paying the poll-tax (jizya), although their position worsened over the centuries and conversion, social pressure and occasional persecution reduced them to a small minority.

Iranian converts brought much of their culture into Islamic civilisation: administrative traditions, court ceremonial, the calendar festival of Nowruz, and the epic memory of the Persian kings preserved in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (completed around 1010). Scholars have compared Islamic beliefs about the narrow bridge (sirat) that souls must cross over hell with the Zoroastrian Chinvat Bridge, and discussed whether Persian practice played any part in the fixing of five daily prayers, which Zoroastrians also observe in five watches of the day. These suggestions remain speculative and are rejected by many Muslim and Western scholars, who see the Islamic doctrines as developing from Qur'anic and Near Eastern sources.

A more conscious engagement appears in philosophy and mysticism. The twelfth-century philosopher Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, founder of the Illuminationist (Ishraqi) school, presented his metaphysics of light as a revival of the wisdom of the ancient Persian sages alongside that of Hermes and Plato. Persian Sufi poets used the figure of the Magian elder (pir-e moghan) and the Magian tavern as symbols of spiritual intoxication (see Sufism and Islamic philosophy).

Zoroaster in Western Esoteric Thought§

Greek and Latin literature knew Zoroaster chiefly as the founder of the Magi and a master of astrology and magic. In the fifteenth century the Byzantine philosopher Gemistos Plethon presented the Chaldean Oracles as oracles of the Magi descended from Zoroaster, and Renaissance Platonists such as Marsilio Ficino placed Zoroaster at the head of the "ancient theology" (prisca theologia) that led through Hermes Trismegistus to Plato. Friedrich Nietzsche later borrowed his name for Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885). These images say more about European thought than about the religion Zoroastrians practise, but they show how far the prophet's name travelled.

Frequently asked questions§

Did Zoroastrianism influence the Bible?§

Many scholars think so, particularly for books written after the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, which show new ideas about angels, Satan, resurrection and final judgment. The influence is hard to prove in detail because most Zoroastrian texts were written down centuries later. A cautious summary is that Persian contact was one of several factors in these developments.

Is the Christian devil based on Ahriman?§

The Christian Devil grew out of Jewish ideas of the Second Temple period, which may have been shaped in part by the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman). There are important differences: Ahriman is an independent, uncreated spirit in later Zoroastrian theology, while in Judaism, Christianity and Islam Satan is a created being who rebelled. Scholars debate how much the two figures are historically linked.

How does Islam regard Zoroastrians?§

The Qur'an names the Majus (Magians) in Surah 22:17 among communities God will judge, and Islamic law generally granted Zoroastrians protected status similar to Jews and Christians, in return for the poll-tax. Their actual treatment varied greatly by period and ruler, and Zoroastrians in Iran became a small minority.

Did Zoroastrianism influence Islam?§

Persian culture deeply influenced Islamic civilisation through Iranian converts, administrators and poets, and festivals such as Nowruz survived. Specific religious borrowings, such as the bridge to paradise or the five daily prayers, have been proposed but remain disputed.

Sources and further reading§