Zoroastrianism and Judaism/Chapter 9

ONLY an outline treatment of the Zoroastrian and Jewish conceptions of a future life will be attempted. But sufficient for a fair comparison to be made. When death takes place the soul remains in the vicinity of the body for three days, and three nights which indicates a kind of transitional stage, during which the soul of the good. man has a foretaste of the delights of Paradise and that of the evil man the torments of Hell.^[1] The body becomes a prey of the demons who rejoice over its death.^[2] Impurity was communicated to everything in the house, and to all who stood in any relationship to the dead. There was an elaborate series of ceremonies for purification to which reference already has been made.

After the three days and three nights during which the happy pious soul has been lingering about the body, on the dawn of the fourth day the soul passes over the Chinvat Bridge. The pious soul meets a balmy and sweet scented wind. “It seems to him as if his own conscience were advancing to him in that wind, in ‘the shape of a maiden fair, bright, white-armed, strong, tall-formed, high-​standing, thick-breasted, beautiful of body, noble, of a glorious seed, of the size of a maid in her fifteenth year, as fair as the fairest things in the world.’” In response to the soul’s question as to who she is, she answers, “O thou youth of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, of good religion, I am thine own conscience?;” and then recounts the good works which the soul accomplished during its earthly career.^[3]

Through three steps the faithful soul passes into the Paradise of good thoughts, of good words, and of good deeds, and at the fourth step into the Paradise of Endless Light, the House of Song, where Ahura Mazda, the holy angels and the pious dead dwell.^[4]

The fate of the impious soul is altogether the opposite of this. In misery the wicked soul wanders about the corpse for three days and three nights. On the morning of the fourth day at the passage of the Chinvat Bridge, it meets a foul, chilly wind blowing from the north. In that wind the soul perceives its own conscience in the shape of an ugly hag. In answer to the soul’s question she declares she is the embodiment of his evil thoughts, words, and deeds, and recites his wickedness upon earth. Through three successive steps, the evil soul passes into the place of evil thoughts, evil words, evil deeds, and last of all into the region of eternal darkness, which ​is most foul and full of suffering, and the abode of Angro Mainyu and his followers.^[5]

There is conceived to be a private judgment in which man’s conscience, personified as a beautiful maiden or a horrid hag, described above, is the judge. At the Chinvat Bridge, justice is administered to the soul before the three angels Sarosha, Mithra, and Rashnu. The good and evil deeds are weighed against each other, and decision is rendered in accordance with the turn of the scales. If the good deeds outweigh the evil ones, the soul is assisted by the angels and the beautiful maiden into Paradise. If not, he is assailed by the demons and the ugly hag and is hurried or falls down to hell. The Bridge becomes broad to the righteous soul, and so narrow to the wicked that the lost soul falls from it, and descends through successive stages into the wretched abode of Angro Mainyu.^[6] In the Gathas the idea of a judgment dividing the good and evil is clearly conceived.^[7] Throughout the Avesta the future condition of the soul is described as a personal, conscious experience of happiness or misery.

There is in the Iranian faith perfect confidence in Ahura Mazda’s justice. If the wicked prosper in this life, it will not always be so. The faithful will ​be delivered from all suffering and have abundant happiness in the life to come. Ahura Mazda will be absolutely just in his awards to the wicked and to the righteous, and a new order of things will be established. “I conceived of thee as bountiful, O Great Giver, Mazda! when I beheld thee as supreme in the generation of life, when, as rewarding deeds and words, thou didst establish evil for the evil, and happy blessings for the good, by thy great virtue to be adjudged to each in the creation’s final change.”^[8] Rewards and punishments are self-induced, and this follows from the belief in individual responsibility.^[9]

The happiness and misery of the next world is essentially mental and spiritual. A single illustration of the hope of the righteous will indicate this: “And now in these thy dispensations, O Ahura Mazda! do thou wisely act for us, and with abundance with thy bounty and thy tenderness as touching us; and grant that reward which thou hast appointed to our souls, O Ahura Mazda! Of this do thou thyself bestow upon us for this world and the spiritual; and now as part thereof do thou grant that we may attain to fellowship with thee, and thy righteousness for all duration.”^[10]

There are hints of a belief in the resurrection of the body in the Gathas,^[11] and in all the remaining ​Iranian literature it is clearly set forth. The resurrection is brought into connection with the regeneration of the world. “We sacrifice unto the kingly glory, that will cleave unto the victorious Saoshyant and his helpers, when he shall restore the world, which will thenceforth never grow old and never die, never decaying and never rotting, ever living and ever increasing, and master of its wish, when the dead will rise, when life and immortality will come, and the world will be restored.”^[12] At the coming and triumph of Saoshyant, a Fragment declares, “Let Angro Mainyu be hid beneath the earth. Let the daevas likewise disappear. Let the dead arise, unhindered by these foes, and let bodily life be sustained in these now lifeless bodies.”^[13]

The idea of the resurrection’s being connected with the coming of Saoshyant and the regeneration of the world, is parallel to the hopes of the primitive and some present day Christians in the expected return of Christ. But the underlying features of the Zoroastrian eschatology are not late, but belong to the oldest teachings of the system. A mighty conflict precedes the end of the world. The powers of darkness are arrayed against those of light. The fiend-smiting Saoshyant will be completely victorious. He will renovate the world, make the living immortal, and cause the dêad to arise. This ​belief is throughout the Avesta.^[14]

For detail and vividness of portrayal, and for loftiness of conception, the Zoroastrian ideas of the future condition of the individual, of a judgment, of future rewards and punishments, and of a resurrection, are far in advance of anything to be found in Judaism. Until a late period, Jewish ideas upon the future life were exceedingly shadowy. The conception of Yahveh and nearness to Him, may have implied immortality and future blessedness for the faithful. That does not concern us. The Jews did not see the implication.

In nearly every religion no matter how rude, there is some suggestion of a belief in immortality, though often vague and materialistic in form. Without such a belief, “religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.”^[15] Yet among the early Jews there is no definite teaching concerning immortality, and no hopeful view of the future life. Sheol is always spoken of with a tone of sadness. It is the final abode of all good or bad. Existence there is colorless. It is a place of silence and forgetfulness.^[16] Faith in Yahveh led to individual surmises. of a life after death, but these gropings are only occasional.^[17] They do not ​represent the faith of the people. The earthly life had a strong hold upon the Jewish people. Their hopes of the future related to the enjoyment of Yahveh upon earth and to Israel’s glory.

In the Persian period of Jewish writings a belief in immortality has for the first time taken definite form, and this becomes clearer in still later writings. There is a growing hope in the future life. “This present world is not the end.” “There is promised us an everlasting hope.”^[18] There will be happy rewards for the righteous and punishments for the wicked.^[19] All men will be brought to judgment and Yahveh will be their judge.^[20]

The coming of the Messiah will inaugurate a new order of things. There will be “new heavens and a new earth.”^[21] The righteous individual, as well as the righteous nation, will receive blessings in the Messianic kingdom, and there will be a resurrection of the dead. “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”^[22] But it is Yahveh not the Messiah who will raise the dead. In some of the Psalms there is an intimation ​that the reward of the righteous will be spiritual, that there will be mental communion with Yahveh.^[23]

The direct and positive teachings concerning the future life that suddenly appear in the literature of post-exilic times are best accounted for through Zoroastrian influence. The Zoroastrian ideas of the future life probably date from not later than the fifth century B. C., as has been shown. When the Jews came into contact with the Persians holding with fervor the hope of immortality, they could not but ask themselves whether that hope was to be discovered in their own religion. Some would refuse to acknowledge that the great doctrine was a part of the faith, as the later Sadducees. But most of the people were eager to accept the new and inspiring hope. Their misfortunes made them all the more ready to believe in the life to come. As soon as the Jews felt that the hope of the future life, had been latent in their faith, and could be developed from it, they vied with the Zoroastrians in the earnestness with which they maintained it.^[24]