Nietzsche wrote Thus Spake Zarathustra, Johann Strauss composed the tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra, and Stanley Kubrick used that as the theme music for 2001: A Space Odyssey. So why did Kubrick choose this particular piece? If you remember the movie (or book), 2001 was involved with evolution�from pre-homo sapiens to post-homo sapiens. And evolution was a major part of Nietzsche�s philosophy. He believed that it was the destiny of humanity to move beyond human nature.
That still doesn�t explain who Zarathustra/Zoroaster was, and how he came to figure in Nietzsche�s philosophy.
Nietzsche claimed that Zarathustra had been the first to perceive that the motive force in the working of the world was the struggle between good and evil. And Nietzsche was obsessed with ethical dualism�the belief that life itself (thought, word, and deed) was divided into positive and negative absolutes. Nietzsche�s life became a struggle to escape them.
Nietzsche lived in the latter part of the nineteenth century C.E. How did he know about Zarathustra, a Persian prophet who lived some time between the 11th and 6th centuries B.C.E. ? Writers from about the fifth century on had written about him, calling him the greatest religious leader of ancient times. But most of the writings of that period became lost to Europeans during the Dark Ages and were preserved and read only by the Muslims. During the European Renaissance many of these ancient writings were re-discovered and translated out of Arabic and back into European languages. It was Nietzsche�s reading of classics during his education that introduced him to Zarathustra.
Nietzsche read about him, but he did not read about his teachings. European nations had a tendency to look down upon Asian nations, including Zarathustra�s homeland Persia, and teachings about their religion were deemed neither important nor significant.
What were the basic beliefs of Zoroaster, and how did they come to influence western religious thought?
The key points I ask my students to remember begin with the assertion that Zoroastrianism is monotheistic�and was probably the first significant monotheistic religion. The one and only deity is Ahura Mazda. He represents good, which is the light, and fire is its symbol. (But wasn�t it a dualism that caught Nietzsche�s attention?)
Next, the world is the battleground of a struggle between good and evil. Ahura Mazda represents good and the evil force is known as Ahriman. (This is probably the dualistic aspect that Nietzsche saw.) Ahriman was not created evil but became evil by choice. Who created Ahriman and how did he become the Destroyer? First, the myth about Ahriman�s birth does not appear in Zoroastrian sources. It is Christian sources which give the following account.
"When nothing existed at all, neither heaven nor earth, the great god Zurvan alone existed, whose name means 'fate' or 'fortune'. He offered sacrifice for a thousand years that perchance he might have a son who should be called Ohrmazd and who should create heaven and earth. At the end of this period of a thousand years he began to ponder and said to himself: "What use is this sacrifice that I am offering, and will I really have a son called Ohrmazd, or am I taking all this trouble in vain?' And no sooner had this thought occurred to him than both Ohrmazd and Ahriman were conceived--Ohrmazd because of the sacrifice he had offered, and Ahriman because of his doubt. When he realized there were two sons in the womb, he made a vow saying: 'Whichever of the two shall come to me first, him I will make king.' Ohrmazd was apprised of his father's thought and revealed it to Ahriman. When Ahriman heard this, he ripped the womb open, emerged, and advanced toward his father. Zurvan, seeing him, asked him: "Who art thou?' And he replied: 'I am thy son, Ohrmazd.' And Zuvan said: 'My son is light and fragrant, but thou art dark and stinking.' And he wept most bitterly. And as they were walking together, Ohrmazd was born in his turn, light and fragrant; and Zurvan, seeing him, knew that it was his son Ohrmazd for whom he had offered the sacrifice. Taking the barsom twigs twigs he held in his hands with which he had been sacrificing, he gave them to Ohrmazd and said: 'Up until now it is I who have offered thee sacrifice; from now on thou shalt sacrifice to me.' But even as Zurvan handed the sacrificial twigs to Ohrmazd, Ahriman drew near and said to him: 'Didst thou not vow that whichever of thy sons should come to thee first, to him wouldst thou give thy kingdom?' And Zurvan said to him: 'O false and wicked one, the kingdom shall be granted thee for nine thousand years, but Ohrmazd have I made a king above thee, and after nine thousand years he will reign and will do everything according to his good pleasure.' And Ohrmazd created the heavens and the earth and all things that are beautiful and good; but Ahriman created the demons and all that is evil and perverse. Ohrmazd created riches, Ahriman poverty." (Zaehner, 207-8)
According to myth, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman also made a pact pledging that they would battle each for only 9000 years. (Do you see any similarities between the Christian concepts of God and Lucifer/Satan/ Old Nick/ the Devil?) Ultimately, good will triumph over evil. The Zoroastrian creation myth explains this. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether this is the original myth, or whether Zoroaster rewrote it to fit his ideology.
Free Will is another concept introduced by Zoroaster. ALL, including the deity, must make the choice between good and evil. If one does not consciously choose good, then that person will�by default, so to speak�have chosen evil. This was a new and revolutionary concept. In what way? Before Zoroaster�s revelations, people did not believe they had control over their lives but that supernatural forces controlled them. (Remember, early spiritual thought was polytheistic.)
This is the first (known) instance of the concept of Free Will appearing in spiritual thought.
I already said that Zoroastrians believe that the world is a constant battleground between good and evil, but that eventually good will triumph over evil. Now comes the part that is significant. That time will be heralded by the appearance of a messiah/savior who will lead the forces of good to victory in a final struggle.
At the end of the struggle, with good triumphant, there will be a final judgment of all souls. Those who are judged good will be resurrected bodily to a better existence (heaven.) The others will be consigned to a flaming hell.
Early Zoroastrianism contains the beginnings of the idea of not only an individual judgment at death, but also an ordeal of fire and molten metal for everyone at the end of time�an ordeal from which only the good emerge unscathed and purified by the fire.
Zoroaster taught that at death, a person must cross the Bridge of the Requiter, guided by Zoroaster himself. The good person�s righteousness that was with him on earth would then be united with the Truth and Good Mind of God�and these are themselves the source of earthly goodness and truth.
The wicked, however, are not able to cross that bridge with their troubled consciences and souls, and they end up in the House of the Lie�Hell.
What are the Zoroastrian heaven and hell like? Zoroaster doesn�t say much about Heaven, except that those in heaven will be blessed with ease and benefit and have immortality. He gives a somewhat fuller description of Hell, saying that those who end up there will spend eternity in darkness, with foul food and constant cries of woe from other residents.
For how long? Eternity? No. Zoroastrians believe that eventually time will end, when the collective good acts of humanity have slowly transformed the material world into its heavenly ideal. And at that time every thing and every one will be purified�even the souls in hell.
That�s the basic beliefs.
I always want to know why things happen the way that they do, and so I ask �Why did monotheism develop?� Geography has been suggested as a major factor, and I find it a compelling argument. (I also have another argument, which I use in my classes.)
The geography argument goes as follows: If you live in a fertile area you are far more likely to see spiritual presences in the many natural aspects of your environment�trees, streams, hills, etc. (This is known as animism.)
On the other hand, if you look at the environments of the geographical source of the major pure monotheistic religions you will find harsh environments�the deserts of Arabia and Canaan, the mountains and steppes of Central Asia. It was the Hebrew tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah who practised a strict, austere monotheism, while the ten tribes who settled in the more fertile land north of Canaan developed a more syncretic faith. They integrated some of the traditional (polytheistic, animistic) ways, as well as aspects of their neighbors� faiths, into their worship of Yahweh. (Side note: these are the ten lost tribes of Israel who were defeated and scattered by the Assyrians in the 8th century B.C.E. They are considered �lost� not in the geographical sense, but in the religious sense. They did not practice the strict monotheism Yahweh demanded.)
This leads to another question.
How did the various beliefs and aspects of ancient Persia make it into Western spiritual thought? (First you have to visualize a map of the eastern Mediterrranean and the lands to the east.) The really ancient Indo-Iranian religions were polytheistic and came from the Aryans (free-born nobles) who settled that area, now called Iran. As the Iranian and Indian societies diverged, most of the names changed, but the functions of their deities remained similar.
Zarathustra (according to tradition) was a priest in the old polytheistic religion of the Medes (who later became the Persians.) When he was 15 he renounced the worldly life and spent the next 15 years in contemplation of God and receiving revelations. He was tempted by Ahriman. At the end of this period he began to preach the new religion, but the Iranians were not ready to accept it. A neighboring kingdom welcomed him however, and ultimately the new religion took root in both the Persian and neighboring kingdoms.
Some time later, when the Babylonians had briefly attained hegemony in the area, there were extensive contacts with the Hebrew peoples being held in the Babylonian captivity. Although these people were free to return to Palestine after the Persians conquered the Babylonians, their departures did not all come about immediately. And, they no doubt carried some of these new ideas back with them. Another venue of transmission would have been trade�that old reliable method of cultural diffusion.
You�ve heard of the Magi�the three kings from the East who came with gifts for the infant Jesus? After Zoroaster died the religion itself gradually underwent changes. One of these was the development of a priestly caste which ended up monopolizing religious affairs. Known as the Magi, they were not part of Zarathushtra�s original revelation. By the time of Xerxes (who ended up being defeated by the Greece in the Persian Wars in the early fifth century B.C.E.) the Magi were dominant.
In later years, Zoroastrianism ended up dividing into three sects. Their controversies were purely theological�somewhat like the sectarianism of early Christianity. They differed on the question of the origin of evil and whether it might be attributed to God. The rivals also disagreed on the meaning of the passage that I quoted earlier about the origin of Ahriman. �In the beginning the two Spirits who are the . . . twins were known as the one good, the other evil, in thought, word, and deed. . . .And when these spirits met, they established in the beginning life and death, that in the end the followers of the Lie should meet with the worst existence, but the followers of Truth with the Best Mind. (178). � The argument continues by claiming that since God was the creator of the spirits, he must have known already that one would choose good while the other chose evil. Thus, since God (being omniscient) knew that one would choose evil, this could be interpreted as saying that God permits evil.
The opposing view, that of Zoroaster, contended that God was the Wise Lord who was beyond those spirits and who associated only with the holy one, utterly rejecting the evil. The philosophical argument went on without coming to a conclusion that might unify the Zoroastrian sects.
What about the angels mentioned in the �promo?�
These are known as the Bounteous Immortals and, according to Zoroaster�s revelation, are aspects of God, but aspects that mortals can share. The Bounteous Immortals are the agencies through which God acts and have no existence separate from God. These abstractions (the Bounteous Immortals ) are the Good Mind, Truth or Righteousness, Right-Mindedness, the Kingdom, Wholeness, and Immortality. These are not children or offspring of God: it is believed that he thought them into existence by an act of will.
Their relationship with God might be compared to that of Christianity, where God is not a pure monad but a trinity�and Christians often pray to God through the son, Jesus.
Where did the concept of the Bounteous Immortals come from? There are many scholarly opinions on this subject. Some have compare the Bounteous Immortals to the Adityas of early Indian mythology. Other scholars say they have little, if anything, in common. Bottom line is the conclusion that they are a part of a common Indo-Iranian heritage.
At any rate, the concepts of free will, final judgment, the Devil, Hell, and angels first appeared (as far as we can determine from available records) in the religion preached by Zoroaster�aka Zarathushtra. And the period in which Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion was in Persia�s heyday�from about 559 B.C.E. to 651 C.E.
What of Zoroastrianism today? Based on information from an internet site, there are about 140,000 Zoroastrians. They are mostly in Western India (where they are known as Parsis) and Iran. About 5,000 are in North America.
Zoroastrians believe that there is no such thing as religious conversion because one�s particular religion is given by God at birth, and going to another would be rebellion against God�s judgment. The corollary of this is the belief that all religions are equal and that the righteous of every religion go to Heaven.
Zoroastrians also believe that the dead should not be buried, but placed reverently in stone-enclosed towers and left for flesh-eating birds and the sun to act on. This prevents the world from being spiritually or materially polluted by the dead and decaying matter. Where this is not possible, cremation is acceptable. Marriage must be only between Zoroastrians so as to preserve the spiritual strength of the religion and the ethnic identity of the Zoroastrian Aryans.
Zoroastrianism is a little known religion, but the thought and concepts emanating from it have had a profound influence on the other spiritual paths that developed in West Asia.
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