Editing Zoroaster (section)

==Western references to Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism==
===In classical antiquity===
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The Greeks—in the [[Hellenization|Hellenistic sense]] of the term—had an understanding of Zoroaster as expressed by [[Plutarch]], [[Diogenes Laertius]], and [[Agathias]]<ref>See [[Plutarch]]'s ''Isis and Osiris'' 46-7, [[Diogenes Laertius]] 1.6–9, and [[Agathias]] 2.23-5.</ref> that saw him, at the core, to be the "prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples," Beck notes that "the rest was mostly fantasy".<ref name="Beck_525">{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=525}}.</ref> Zoroaster was set in the ancient past, six to seven millennia before the Common Era, and was described as a king of [[Bactria]] or a [[Babylonia]]n (or teacher of Babylonians), and with a biography typical of a [[Neopythagorean]] sage, i.e. having a mission preceded by ascetic withdrawal and enlightenment.<ref name = "Beck_525"/> However, at first mentioned in the context of dualism, in [[Moralia]], Plutarch presents Zoroaster as {{anchor|Zaratras}}"Zaratras," not realizing the two to be the same, and he is described as a "teacher of [[Pythagoras]]".<ref name=PlutarchMoraliaBrenk/><ref name="Tuplin2007">{{cite book |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cwFPDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA246 246] |year=2007 |first=Christopher |last=Tuplin |publisher=ISD LLC |title=Persian Responses: Political and Cultural Interaction with(in) the Achaemenid Empire |isbn=9781910589465 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cwFPDgAAQBAJ}}</ref>

Zoroaster has also been described as a sorcerer-astrologer{{snd}}the creator of both magic and astrology. Deriving from that image, and reinforcing it, was a "mass of literature" attributed to him and that circulated the [[Mediterranean]] world from the 3rd century BC to the end of antiquity and beyond.<ref name = "Beck_491"/><ref>{{harvnb|Beck|2003|loc=para. 4}}.</ref>

The language of that literature was predominantly [[Greek language|Greek]], though at one stage or another various parts of it passed through [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]], [[Syriac language|Syriac]], [[Coptic language|Coptic]], or [[Latin]]. Its ethos and cultural matrix was likewise Hellenistic, and "the ascription of literature to sources beyond that political, cultural and temporal framework represents a bid for authority and a fount of legitimizing "alien wisdom". Zoroaster and the magi did not compose it, but their names sanctioned it."<ref name="Beck_491">{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=491}}.</ref> The attributions to "exotic" names (not restricted to magians<!--cf Arnaldo Momigliano /Alien Wisdom/, Cambridge UP, 1975 -->) conferred an "authority of a remote and revelatory wisdom."<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493">{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=493}}.</ref>

Among the named works attributed to "Zoroaster" is a treatise ''On Nature'' ({{transliteration|grc|Peri physeos}}), which appears to have originally constituted four volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The framework is a retelling of Plato's [[Myth of Er]], with Zoroaster taking the place of the original hero. While [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]] imagined [[Pythagoras]] listening to Zoroaster's discourse, ''On Nature'' has the Sun in middle position, which was how it was understood in the 3rd century. In contrast, Plato's 4th-century BC version had the Sun in second place above the Moon. [[Colotes]] accused [[Plato]] of plagiarizing Zoroaster,{{sfn|Nock|1929|p=111}}{{sfn|Livingstone|2002|pp=144–145}} and [[Heraclides Ponticus]] wrote a text titled ''Zoroaster'' based on his perception of "Zoroastrian" philosophy, in order to express his disagreement with Plato on [[natural philosophy]].{{sfn|Livingstone|2002|p=147}} With respect to substance and content in ''On Nature'' only two facts are known: that it was crammed with astrological speculations, and that [[Ananke (mythology)|Necessity (''Ananké'')]] was mentioned by name and that she was in the air.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}}

[[Pliny the Elder]] names Zoroaster as the inventor of magic (''[[Pliny's Natural History|Natural History]]'' 30.2.3). "However, a principle of the division of labor appears to have spared Zoroaster most of the responsibility for introducing the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds." That "dubious honor" went to the "fabulous magus, [[Ostanes]], to whom most of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed."<ref name="Beck_2003_para7">{{harvnb|Beck|2003|loc=para. 7}}.</ref> Although Pliny calls him the inventor of magic, the Roman does not provide a "magician's persona" for him.<ref name = "Beck_2003_para7"/> Moreover, the little "magical" teaching that is ascribed to Zoroaster is actually very late, with the very earliest example being from the 14th century.<ref>{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=522}}.</ref>

Association with astrology according to Roger Beck, were based on his [[Babylon]]ian origin, and Zoroaster's Greek name was identified at first with star-worshiping ({{transliteration|grc|astrothytes}}, 'star sacrificer") and, with the {{transliteration|grc|Zo-}}, even as the 'living' star.<ref name="Beck_523">{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=523}}.</ref>{{verify source|date=March 2017}} Later, an even more elaborate mythoetymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living ({{transliteration|grc|zo-}}) flux ({{transliteration|grc|ro-}}) of fire from the star ({{transliteration|grc|astr-}}) which he himself had invoked, and even, that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him.<ref name="Beck_523" />{{verify source|date=March 2017}}

The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster was {{anchor|Zaratras}}Zaratras<ref name=PlutarchMoraliaBrenk>{{cite book|author = Brenk, Frederick E. | date = 1977 | title = In Mist Apparelled: Religious Themes in Plutarch's Moralia and Lives, Volumes 48–50 | page = 129 | series = Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava [Vol. 48: Supplementum] | location = Leiden, NDL | publisher = Brill Archive | isbn = 9004052410 | url = https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9004052410 | access-date = March 19, 2017 }}</ref> or Zaratas/Zaradas/Zaratos.<ref>Cf. Agathias 2.23–5 and [[Clement of Alexandria|Clement]]'s ''[[Stromata]]'' I.15.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref> [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagoreans]] considered the mathematicians to have studied with Zoroaster in Babylonia.<ref>See [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]]'s ''Life of Pythagoras'' 12, Alexander Polyhistor apud Clement's ''Stromata'' I.15, Diodorus of Eritrea and Aristoxenus apud [[Hippolytus of Rome|Hippolytus]] VI32.2, for the primary sources.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref> [[Joannes Laurentius Lydus|Lydus]], in ''On the Months'', attributes the creation of the seven-day week to "the Babylonians in the circle of Zoroaster and [[Hystaspes (father of Darius I)|Hystaspes]]," and who did so because there were seven planets.<ref>[[Joannes Laurentius Lydus|Lydus]], ''On the Months'', II.4.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref> [[Lucian|Lucian of Samosata]], in ''Mennipus'' 6, reports deciding to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's disciples and successors," for their opinion.<ref>[[Lucian|Lucian of Samosata]], ''Mennipus'' 6.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref>

While the division along the lines of Zoroaster/astrology and Ostanes/magic is an "oversimplification, the descriptions do at least indicate what the works are {{em|not}}"; they were not expressions of Zoroastrian doctrine, they were not even expressions of what the Greeks and Romans "{{em|imagined}} the doctrines of Zoroastrianism to have been".<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493" /> The assembled fragments do not even show noticeable commonality of outlook and teaching among the several authors who wrote under each name.<ref name="Beck_495">{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=495}}.</ref><!-- "...[The lack of commonality, it] must be emphasized, between ''and among'' the several authors who wrote under the name of the former and the several who wrote under the name of the latter."<ref name="Beck_495"/> -->

Almost all Zoroastrian [[pseudepigrapha]] is now lost, and of the attested texts—with only one exception—only fragments have survived. Pliny's 2nd- or 3rd-century attribution of "two million lines" to Zoroaster suggest that (even if exaggeration and duplicates are taken into consideration) a formidable pseudepigraphic corpus once existed at the [[Library of Alexandria]]. This corpus can safely be assumed to be pseudepigrapha because no one before Pliny refers to literature by "Zoroaster",<ref name = "Beck_526"/> and on the authority of the 2nd-century [[Galen|Galen of Pergamon]] and from a 6th-century commentator on Aristotle it is known that the acquisition policies of well-endowed royal libraries created a market for fabricating manuscripts of famous and ancient authors.<!-- "This, says Galen, was the origin of much of the spurious literature still in circulation in his day. It cannot of course be proved, but it seems not unlikely that Zoroaster, bearing as fabled and antique a name as one might wish, and moreover never having written any real books against which to test the false, would have been an ideal author for the inventions of these entrepreneurs of the book trade."--><ref name="Beck_526">{{harvnb|Beck|1991|p=526}}.</ref>

The exception to the fragmentary evidence (i.e. reiteration of passages in works of other authors) is a complete Coptic [[Tract (literature)|tractate]] titled {{transliteration|cop|Zostrianos}} (after the first-person narrator) discovered in the [[Nag Hammadi library]] in 1945. A three-line cryptogram in the colophones following the 131-page treatise identify the work as "words of truth of Zostrianos. God of Truth [{{transliteration|grc|logos}}]. Words of Zoroaster."<ref>{{harvnb|Sieber|1973|p=234}}.</ref> Invoking a "God of Truth" might seem Zoroastrian, but there is otherwise "nothing noticeably Zoroastrian" about the text and "in content, style, ethos and intention, its affinities are entirely with the congeners among the [[Gnostic]] tractates."<ref name="Beck_495"/>

Another work circulating under the name of "Zoroaster" was the {{transliteration|grc|Asteroskopita}} (or {{transliteration|grc|Apotelesmatika}}), and which ran to five volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The title and fragments suggest that it was an astrological handbook, "albeit a very varied one, for the making of predictions."<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493"/> A third text attributed to Zoroaster is ''On Virtue of Stones'' ({{transliteration|grc|Peri lithon timion}}), of which nothing is known other than its extent (one volume) and that pseudo-Zoroaster 'sang' it (from which Cumont and Bidez{{who|date=March 2017}} conclude that it was in verse). Numerous other fragments preserved in the works of other authors are attributed to "Zoroaster", but the titles of those books are not mentioned.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}}

These pseudepigraphic texts aside, some authors did draw on a few genuinely Zoroastrian ideas. The ''Oracles of Hystaspes'', by "[[Vishtaspa|Hystaspes]]", another prominent magian pseudo-author, is a set of prophecies distinguished from other Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha in that it draws on real Zoroastrian sources.<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493"/> Some allusions are more difficult to assess:{{Original research inline|date=March 2017}} in the same text that attributes the invention of magic to Zoroaster,{{cn|date=September 2024}} Pliny states that Zoroaster laughed on the day of his birth, although in an earlier place, Pliny had sworn in the name of [[Hercules]] that no child had ever done so before the 40th day from his birth.<ref>Pliny, VII, I.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref> This notion of Zoroaster's laughter also appears in the 9th– to 11th-century texts of genuine Zoroastrian tradition, and for a time it was assumed{{weasel inline|date=March 2017}} that the origin of those myths lay with indigenous sources.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}} Pliny also records that Zoroaster's head had pulsated so strongly that it repelled the hand when laid upon it, a presage of his future wisdom.<ref>Pliny, VII, XV.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref> The Iranians were however just as familiar with the Greek writers, and the provenance of other descriptions are clear.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}} For instance, Plutarch's description of its dualistic theologies reads thus: "Others call the better of these a god and his rival a daemon, as, for example, Zoroaster the Magus, who lived, so they record, five thousand years before the siege of Troy. He used to call the one [[Ahura Mazda|Horomazes]] and the other [[Angra Mainyu|Areimanius]]".<ref>Plutarch's ''Isis and Osiris'', 46–7.{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}</ref>

===In the modern era===
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An early reference to Zoroaster in English literature occur in the writings of the physician-philosopher Sir [[Thomas Browne]] who asserted in his ''[[Religio Medici]]'' (1643):

{{blockquote|I believe, besides Zoroaster, there were divers{{efn|meaning "various"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/divers |title=DIVERS Definition & Usage Examples |publisher=Dictionary.com}}</ref>}} that writ before Moses, who notwithstanding have suffered the common fate of time.|''Religio Medici'', Part 1, Section 23<ref>Religio Medici Part 1 Section 23</ref>}}

In [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]]'s novel ''[[Little Zaches|Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober]]'' (1819), the mage Prosper Alpanus states that Professor Zoroaster was his teacher.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.michaelhaldane.com/kleinzaches.htm |title=Klein Zaches Genannt Zinnober |publisher=Michaelhaldane.com |access-date=2013-11-19}}</ref>

In his seminal work ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'' (1885), the philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] uses the native Iranian name Zarathustra, which has a significant meaning as he had used the familiar Greek-Latin name in his earlier works.<ref name="eiashouri">{{harvnb|Ashouri|2003}}.</ref> It is believed that Nietzsche invents a characterization of Zarathustra as the mouthpiece for Nietzsche's own ideas about [[morality]].{{efn|''[[Ecce Homo (Nietzsche)|Ecce Homo]]'' quotations are per the Ludovici translation.<ref>{{harvnb|Nietzsche/Ludovici|1911|p=133|Ref=Ludovici}}</ref> Paraphrases follow the original passage ({{lang|de|Warum ich ein Schicksal bin}} 3), available in the public domain.<ref>[http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=45&fk_files=16908 p. 45] of [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7202 the Project Gutenberg EBook].</ref>}} By choosing the name of 'Zarathustra' as prophet of his philosophy, as he has expressed clearly, he followed the paradoxical aim of paying homage to the original Iranian prophet and reversing his teachings at the same time. The original Zoroastrian world view interprets being essentially on a moralistic basis and depicts the world as an arena for the struggle of the two fundamentals of being, Good and Evil, represented in two antagonistic divine figures.<ref name= eiashouri /> On the contrary, Nietzsche wants his philosophy to be ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]''.