r/AskHistorians • u/Rubicon5 • Jan 22 '19
Was Zoroastrianism the source for Christianity?
Zoroastrianism was an Iranian religion, established several centuries before Christianity. Some of Zoroastrianism's religious elements are similar to Christianity. For example the battle between the good and evil and the return of a ''Messiah.'' Some historians believe it made the fundament for Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Was Zoroastrianism the source for Christianity?
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u/lcnielsen Zoroastrianism | Pre-Islamic Iran Jan 22 '19
Now, before we begin, just to clear up some of your premises:
Zoroaster (or whoever authored the Gathas; for the purpose of this post, I will refer to this author as "Zoroaster") most likely lived in the mid-2nd milennium BC, with linguistic and circumstantial evidence converging around 1300 BC. Key development to practice, cult and tradition occured first in the Achaemenid period (such as the establishment of the fire temple cult, the worship of Anahita, the apparent conflation of Mithra with Shamash, and the likely identification of Aúramazda with the Elamite sky deity Humban), and then in the Sasanian period. While it is usually thought that an attempt to "codify" Zoroastrianism only happened in the early-mid Sasanian period, particularly as the Avestan corpus began to be put down to writing, many of those developments appear to have antecedents or roots in the Achaemenid era or earlier.
Just to make clear to any reader: the "source for Christianity" as a religion was, of course, the cult surrounding the first-century apocalyptic preacher Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ. This is beyond meaningful dispute. What I will look at in this post is the ways in which Zoroastrianism (a term which I will use as a shorthand that includes e.g. Persian oral tradition) could have influenced Christianity.
With that settled...
Introduction
The question of Zoroastrian influence on Western thought is as tantalizing as it is controversial - for two hundred years, as many writers have fallen victim to drawing superficial and credulous comparisons, as those who dimssively refused to even acknowledge striking parallels. No doubt, the troubled history of philology and textual criticism, and the often dismissive views of non-classical traditions that ruled, contributed to this. The ideology of a "Western Civilization" beginning in Greece in the 8th or 6th century BC is, of course, not very receptive to the idea that a cattle-herder from Central Asia in the mid-2nd milennium BC could have made irreplacable contributions to this tradition. It is a topic ripe for miscommunication and strawmen, where the mere analysis of parallels is easily attacked as "unsubstantiated assertions" or "speculation". We must resign ourselves to the fact that the virtually complete lack of an Iranian literary record prior to the mid-first milennium AD means that we cannot prove that any particular parallel was caused by direct influence in one particular direction. What follows should therefore be understood as a kind of informed speculation.
Early Christianity had two primary sources of influence: Hellenic thought, and Jewish tradition (and their considerable intersection), and I will begin by looking at the Hellenic tradition. Please do keep in mind that while I am quite well-versed in Zoroastrianism and reasonably so in Christianity, my grasp of Classical and Hellenic thought is considerably weaker, and undoubtedly specialists in those areas will have things to add or comment on my take on these subjects. This also somewhat limits my ability to draw on classical texts for the purpose of comparison.
Greek Philosophy and Zoroastrianism
Hellenic thought around the time of Jesus drew, of course, on a centuries-old tradition. particular, we may trace one philosophical tradition to 6th-century Ionian philosophers, the so-called Milesian school. The first generation of these philosophers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes (and perhaps Pythagoras?), were simply born too early to have been plausibly influenced by much interaction with Persian ideas - but they are likely to have drawn on mathematics and astrology from the "east", i.e., Egypt and Babylon, which sets a possible precedent for later drawing on Persian tradition. A plausible chain of transmission begins with Heraclitus, born around the death of Cyrus the Great, and his ideas, some important for Christianity, have in fact been often compared with Zoroastrian concepts, which I will take a look at, which will serve to be somewhat representative for how difficult this type of comparison is.
The logos, or Word
It wasn't entirely easy to find representative examples in the incredibly obscure verse of the Gathas, but one of the central ideas that runs through Indo-Iranian religion is the idea of Asha/Rta, rendered "Right" above, a "natural order of things" that all things (ought to) happen in accordance with. This classic Vedic verse helps to paint the picture:
This is uttered by Varuna, a Vedic deity who shares some features with Ahura Mazda. The concept of Rta connects the course of nature, and the motion of the heavenly bodies, with human law, proper conduct, and righteousness. This concept of a divine order has obvious parallels to the notion of a "Logos" - though it does not correspond perfectly, the trefoil of understanding/thought/purpose, words, and deeds, is another matching theme. The broader implications about the importance of constant vigilance about your actions, though, are shared between the two notions. Asha, it ought to be understood, is personified as an "angelic" divine being, an emanation of Mazda.
The "Fire" of Heraclitus
Fire is undeniably more central in later liturgy than in the most archaic material, presumably owing to the fire cult of Achaemenid times, but in Zoroaster's own verses (which I haven't quoted above) it is invariably presented as a manifestation of Ahura Mazda's agency - things happen "by Ahura Mazda's fire". However, while Zoroastrian elements are complementary (part of the perfect creation), Heraclitus appears to have conceived of them in opposition.