Zoroastrianism and Judaism/Chapter 7

To make an extended comparison between Zoroastrianism and Judaism in their social customs, and civil and ceremonial laws would be most interesting. The material is abundant, and the field almost untouched. We are aiming, however, to place the two religious systems in comparison, rather than to give an exhaustive treatment of any one idea or principle in the two religions. Under this heading, therefore, the comparisons made should be taken as suggestive only. Our treatment will be brief, with only a few selected details.

Civil laws. In treating of the legal usuages of the Avestan people it is difficult if not impossible always to separate them from the rules of the priesthood, The people of the Avesta are settled agriculturalists. The family forms the unit of the political organization. The clan is made up of a number of families, while the tribe is formed of a number of clans. Little is said of a political body in the early literature.^[1] The master of the house, the clan-lord, tribe-lord, and chieftain of the land are recognized as having authority in their respective spheres.^[2] “Good kings and evil monarchs” are sharply ​distinguished.^[3] The aim of the literature is religious, therefore little attention is paid to civil regulations. These are brought under ceremonial rules, and represent the views of the sacerdotal class. They will be treated later. The same is true of secular laws in Judaism. In the Persian government there was a council of state composed of the seven princes who “see the king’s face.”^[4] Perhaps the seven princes were regarded as representing the seven Amesha Spenta. In the administration there were satraps and prefects, necessitating the employment of posts and means of conveyance. A vivid picture of such an organization is given in Esther.^[5] Herodotus says of the system, “nothing mortal travels so fast.”^[6] Twelve parts of the armour of soldiers are enumerated in one section of the Avesta.^[7] A Pahlavi passage spiritualizes the armour of a warrior in a manner worthy of comparison with the familiar Biblical passage.^[8] The Jews, on the other hand, though they had had many warriors and an organized kingdom were not in a real sense political. The determinative element was religious. Their state was a theocracy, their laws were religious and ceremonial.

Caste. There was no rigid caste system either in ​Zoroastrianism or in Judaism. But there were classes or orders among the people. The division of the people into priests, warriors, and tillers of the soil frequently is met with in the Avesta. The institution of these separate orders is traced to Zarathustra. He is distinctly called the first Priest, the first Warrior, and the first Plougher of the ground.^[9] In the Bundehesh, the three sons of Zarathustra are connected with these three classes. The first was the head of the priests. The second was the commander-in-chief in war. The third was the chief of the agricultural population.^[10] These orders were not castes, for they were not hereditary, nor was intermarriage forbidden. The three orders are blended by all being derived from Zarathustra. It is implied that a son in any class might be born in the same home.^[11]

An artisan class is also sometimes mentioned.^[12] Labor was held in respect. By cultivating a field a man was performing a religious act to the glory of Ahura Mazda. There probably was a servile class, which may have been composed only of captives taken in war. But it seems likely too that a free man might pawn away his freedom.^[13] The spirit and character of the Zoroastrian faith however is against slavery.

​These ideas are similar to those in Judaism. In the earlier days the Jews were a nomadic people. They developed into an agricultural and commercial race. There was no warrior class in Judaism. The priesthood stands distinct as an institution, but was not absolutely exclusive. There were Hebrew slaves, but their subjection was limited in time.^[14] Slavery was a temporary expedient.

The place of woman. The position of woman among the Iranian people was in no way a degrading one. The good deeds of women are alluded to in the same manner as the good deeds of men.^[15] There are just men and just women,^[16] male and female saints.^[17] We find the names of women immortalized for the good they have done.^[18] The prayers of bad women are of no avail.^[19] In order to marry, the girl should be past her fifteenth year.^[20] A wife is an honor to the house.^[21] She must be pure and her reputation unstained.^[22] She is the mistress of the house, just as the husband is the master of the house.^[23] She is not his slave but his companion. A maiden longs for a husband, and one who is young, strong, and learned.^[24] But when Zarathustra is represented as asking ​to see the face of the maid, whom his father sought as bride for him, “whether its appearance be desirable, the bride turned away her face from him.”^[25]

Probably the marriage relation often was founded on love and piety. Perhaps the following may have been an old marriage formula: “Monitions for the marrying. I speak to you maidens, to you, I who know them; and heed ye my sayings: By these laws of the faith which I utter, obtain ye the life of the Good Mind on earth and in heaven. And to you bride and bridegroom, let each one the other in Righteousness cherish; thus alone unto each shall the home-life be happy.”^[26] There seems to be no evidence against the practice of polygamy. Yet monogamy seems sometimes implied.^[27] Children were looked upon as a blessing, and it was a calamity and a sign of impiety to be childless.^[28]

In Judaism, the position of woman generally was lower than that of man, but she had a large degree of freedom. She was locked upon as her husband’s property.^[29] There was always a high conception of the purity of woman.^[30] Evil women are denounced for introducing foreign worship, a fact which also indicates their influence.^[31] In the marriage relation ​“a virtuous woman was a crown to her husband,”^[32] and the ideal is that she was to be his companion.^[33] Monogamy was the general practice. Children were a delight to a home, and the childless wife was an object of reproach.^[34]

Religious virtues. More will be said of religious virtues later, when morals and ethics are treated. Here some of the external elements more commonly called virtues will be pointed out. The religion of Zarathustra is a religion of culture, of spiritual and moral progress. It was a religion of energy and action, a religion of thrift. Every daily duty was sacred. Poverty and asceticism have no place among its virtues. There was an obligation to help those within the faith, but net the impious or strangers.^[35]

Charity was extended to the brute creation, provided they belong to the species created by Ahura Mazda. If any of them were provoked, their complaints would be heard in heaven. The twenty-ninth Yasua contains the lament of the kine, and assurance is given of better treatment through the work of Zarathustra. The dog, too, receives special religious care and attention.^[36] The clearing and cultivation of the soil, and the tending of flocks are viewed from the standpoint of religious duty.^[37] ​“Zarathustra nourished the poor, foddered the cattle, brought firewood to the fire.”^[38]

The propagation of the religion is a part of its essence.^[39] At the same time there is an intense hatred against the wicked which is parallel to ideas often found in the Old Testament.^[40] Much of the Vendidad is devoted to fighting and defeating the daevas.

The Jews did not carry their religion to such an extent as the Zoroastrians into their daily duties, or into their treatment of animals. Some animals were more sacred than others, but not in the sense in which the Zoroastrians understood the animal creation, as creatures of Ahura Mazda and creatures of Angro Mainyu. The mention of dogs in the later literature may probably be due to Persian influence.^[41] The dog among the Jews, however, was an unclean animal. All animals that do not have cloven hoofs and do not chew the cud were impure.^[42] In Judaism kindness was to be shown to the whole animal creation. All land was recognized as belonging to Yahveh, and to be cultivated and held in trust for Him. The poor were to receive special attention, and provision was made for the care of the stranger. Almsgiving was an obligation. The book of Tobit may be called a book on almsgiving.^[43] Persian influence may account ​for much of this.

Rules for purification and concerning defilement. The whole life of the faithful Zoroastrian was a conflict with the powers of darkness, with Angro Mainyu and his demons. Among the means of succor that Ahura Mazda gives, is the holy word revealed to Zarathustra and the prayers taught him.^[44] Among the most often repeated and most highly valued forms of prayer is the Ahuna-vairya, the prayer Ahura Mazda is said to have pronounced before “the sky, before the waters, before the land, before the cattle and the plants,” and before mankind existed. This prayer was recited by Zarathustra,^[45] and was to be recited by men as long as the earth existed.

There were prayers for daily duties,^[46] and prayers for different forms of purification.^[47] Often the prayers were to be repeated and sometimes repeated many times. The words themselves were thought to contain some strange, almost magical power, and the faultless recitation of them was believed to be efficacious. Fire was the holiest and purest element, the reflection of Ahura Mazda, and symbol of moral purity. It was always a means of defence against the demons, and during the night, when they are at work, its light would frighten them away. “And we pray likewise for thy fire, O Ahura! strong through ​righteousness as it is, most swift, most powerful to the house with joy receiving it, in many ways our help, but to the hater, O Mazda! it is a steadfast harm as if with weapons hurled from the hands.”^[48]

Prayers and the fire were among the means of purification. The formalities and ceremonies of purification were multiplied to an almost endless extent. The rites were long and frequent, and complex by many manual acts and incantations. Impurity often came from contact with an impure body. Not only men, but beasts and even utensils might be polluted. The manner and degrees of pollution are pointed out in detail in the Avesta. The purification of the land, of utensils and clothes, of animals, of women after their menses and childbirth, of men for every pollution is prescribed by elaborate rules. The Vendidad, the religious code of the Zoroastrians, is more minute than the Jewish Leviticus.^[49] The priests had a high place in the Iranian faith. They kept the sacred fire, performed purification acts, and fulfilled sacrificial function.^[50] Offerings consisted of flowers, bread, fruit, perfumes, and there were also animal sacrifices.^[51] Herodotus recognizes these, and at the same time he says the Persians “had no images, no temples and no altars.^[52] ​This was mainly true, though the Persians had altars which were sometimes covered.

The priests were to maintain their authority. They were to inflict punishment for transgressions against the ritual and ceremonial laws. It is striking that for almost every law given in the Vendidad, there is added at the same time the punishment that shall be inflicted upon the guilty in case of transgression. The stereotyped expression for a man’s committing transgression is, “what is the penalty that he shall pay.“^[53] The germs and general ideas of the system thus elaborated in the later Avesta, are distinctly found in the Gathas.^[54] But in the Gathas the conceptions are more mental and spiritual.

In Judaism, the manner and times of prayer were sometimes exactly parallel to Zoroastrian habits,^[55] and they equally covered nearly every event of life. With the Jews fire was sacred but not in the sense in which the Zoroastrians held it. It was to have been always kept burning in the temple.^[56] It was a symbol of Yahveh,^[57] and a means of purification. The work of the priests, and the ceremonial regulations, were elaborate and more strictly defined in the Persian period than they had been before. Cleanness or uncleanness was applied to land, ​dwellings, clothes, utensils, animals, men and women, and strict minute laws of purification were enforced. Religious offerings might include a great number of objects, as in the Zoroastrian faith. There were punishments prescribed for every violation of the ritual and ceremonial law. A comparison between the purification laws in the two religions shows many striking resemblances. The effect of the presence of, or the contact with, the dead is a single illustration. The Zoroastrians, however, carried their laws concerning the dead, as well as many other purification and ceremonial laws to much greater lengths than the Jews.^[58]

The rapid development in post-exilic times of the ritualistic and ceremonial regulations, that so characterized later Judaism, we must attribute in part to the rigorous observance by the Persians of more stringent laws and rites. Persian influence is probably responsible for Jewish ceremonialism attaining such far-reaching importance. The feast of Purrin, in honor of the deliverance from the schemes of Haman, may be an adopted Persian festival.^[59]