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By Root 2089 0

opted for a body/soul or spirit/flesh dualism. Plato thought that there is one high god, the good or the beautiful, but he (or it) cannot mix into a corrupt world. Therefore, all that is bad in life is merely the product of the corrupted nature of matter and flesh. Our imperfect life is an unfortunate result of the deterioration of material objects, not from divinity, which is pure and good. The kind of dualism that Zoroastrianism developed-a cosmic battle below a high god who determines its ultimate outcome-looks a great deal like apocalypticism in Judaism and not at all like Platonism. It has a certain formal similarity to the Qumran community too, and has a certain effect on the developing Christian church. In late antiquity one might say both types of dualism could be found in gnosticism (see Ch. 15). Gnosticism is characterized by the revelation of secret knowledge (gnōsis) that can lead to salvation from an irredeemable world by personal transformation.

The Social Background of Dualism

SOME SOCIAL scientists have been interested in defining the social conditions that produce dualism but it is hard to maintain that there is anything more than a correlation between some social situations and dualism. Dualism sometimes emanates from a relatively small group that feels in some way beset with difficulties. Quite often, some kind of dualism is related to a group’s feeling that their society is hostile towards them. Whether such dualism expresses itself in a generalized feeling of hostility against the larger group, as say fundamentalism in the United States, or a pariah cult like the Branch Davidians, depends on any number of historical factors, the moral schemes of the host and the sect, to say nothing of the unique historical circumstances. It seems unlikely that such a general explanation, developed out of studying minority groups in the modern world, could explain the development of dualism in Zoroastrianism, which becomes the state religion of the Persian Empire.

Unfortunately, we have virtually no knowledge of the social conditions that may have encouraged the Indo-European Persians to turn to dualism, to listen to Zarathustra. Since we know nothing of Zarathustra’s biography, we know nothing of the time in which he lived. Whatever else Zoroastrian dualism may signify and wherever it may have come from, Zoroastrian dualism promotes a sense of the community of the redeemed. The Zoroastrians are those who seek the good and form a community of those who are protected by the high god Ahura Mazda. The evil forces will not participate in the heavenly community; they will be in hell being punished until the final consummation. Ultimately, credit must surely be given to the genius of Zarathustra himself and his intuition about how the universe and moral behavior were in dualistic congruence.16

The communal basis of the afterlife fits not only Zoroastrianism but strikes a particularly sympathetic chord with Judaism, as an ethnic and often a diaspora community, and with Christianity, as a growing sect after it, as well as with Manichaenism and Islam. We should look for the importance of a communal afterlife, with its implications for the community of the saved on earth, in all those communities who stress bodily resurrection, just like the Zoroastrians. Life in community was life with a body, it seems, at least in these historical instances; dualism was correlated with bodily resurrection. This seems so characteristic of Zoroastrianism and Jewish sectarianism that it is hard not to admit some kind of relationship. In Greco-Roman platonic dualism, on the other hand, matter itself is evil. Resurrection is therefore not desirable.

It is difficult to conclude more than this from the fragmentary evidence about Zoroastrian beginnings. There are no clear lines of causation between Zoroastrian dualism and the dualisms that grew up in Israel. On the other hand, several images taken from Zoroastrianism can be seen to influence Hebrew society. In Zoroastrianism, a notion of an apocalyptic end, the frasho kereti, was strongly articulated.