by Henry de Lesquen, Reseau International
«Zoroaster, while throwing himself passionately into the evidence of monotheism, did not want to lose the distinction between functions of mystical sovereignty, of fighting power and of fertility. (…) Sacrificing his myths, he kept the essential, the philosophical framework, to apply it to the ardent analysis of the new object of his faith: the unique god, creator and universal master” ~ Georges Dumézil
Summary
From monotheism to the resurrection of the dead, the dogmas of Zoroastrianism, the religion of the ancient Persians, are found in Christianity. Now, the Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrianism, predates by several centuries the meeting of the Jews and the Persians, which took place in 539 BC, when the emperor Cyrus took Babylon, where the Jews had been deported. It must therefore be concluded that Old Testament Judaism inherited Zoroastrian dogmas after this date and transmitted them to Christianity.
Christians are well aware of what they owe to Old Testament Judaism, but they are completely unaware, with rare exceptions, that the latter, in turn, owed a considerable debt to Zoroastrianism which preceded it. Christianity therefore has Zoroastrian origins. Now, this strangely little-known truth is of interest not only to Christians themselves, but to all Westerners, Christian or not, since Western civilization is essentially Christian.
Concordance of dogmas
Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism was the religion of the ancient Iranians (Persians, Medes, Parthians), who formed with the Indians, or more precisely with the Indo-Aryans, the eastern branch, called Indo-Iranian, of the family of Indo-European peoples. It is still practiced by some 200 followers throughout the world, especially in Iran (Gebres or Zarthoshtis) and in India (called Parsis, that is to say Persians, because they descend from immigrants who came from Iran to flee persecution). This religion takes the first of its two names from its founder, the prophet Zoroaster, alias Zarathustra, the second of his God, Ahura Mazda. In the 1771th century, when Westerners discovered Zoroastrianism, the memory of which had been lost since the ancient Greeks and of which they themselves, moreover, had only a vague notion, and especially after the first translation of its holy book, the Avesta, in XNUMX, they were struck by the affinities it had with Christianity. The concordance of dogmas is indeed confusing.
Zoroastrianism believes in one God, Ahura Mazda, the Lord Wisdom, who is infinitely good and who created the world. He is surrounded by a procession of archangels, the benevolent immortals, ameshas spentas, and simple angels, yazatas. Ahura Mazda created the Holy Spirit, Spirit of Good, Spenta Manyu, and the Spirit of Evil, Angra Manyu, who freely chose, like Satan, to oppose God, and who is assisted by a host of demons, daevas.
Zoroastrianism is a religion of salvation. He believes in eternal life, in the judgment of the soul after death, in the retribution of good and bad thoughts, words and actions, in hell and paradise (word of Persian origin) – individual eschatology. He also believes in the Savior, Saushyant, who will return at the end of the world, in the resurrection of the dead, in the last judgment and in the coming of the Kingdom of God – collective eschatology.
We will note the same apparent incongruity as in Christianity, an incongruity which results from the superposition of the two eschatologies, the last judgment which takes place at the end of the world appearing to duplicate the particular judgment pronounced immediately after death.
(The problem had troubled Pope John XXII. It was up to his successor, Benedict XII, to provide a definitive solution, ex cathedra, in 1336, in the constitution Benedictus Deus. Cf. Gervais Dumeige, The Catholic Faith, p. 510-511.)
Zoroastrianism is a universalist religion, which is addressed to all men, and not to a particular people (although the survivors, guardians of the flame, tended to withdraw into themselves under the effect of persecution after the Muslim conquest).
English translation of Zoroastre et nous : Les origines zoroastriennes de l’Occident chrétien
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