ZOROASTER, the founder of the national religion of the Iranian people from the time of the Achaemenidae to the close of the Sassanian period. The name (Zc.opolcorpns) is the corrupt Greek form of the Iranian Zarathustra (new Persian, Zardushi). Its signification is obscure. Zoroaster was famous in antiquity as the founder of the wisdom of the Magi. His name occurs first in a fragment of Xanthus (29), and in the Alcibiades of Plato (i. p. 122), who calls him the son of Oromazdes. Occidental writers sometimes call him a Bactrian, sometimes a Median or Jackson, Zoroaster, i86). According to Pliny (Nat.
list. 15), he laughed on the very day of his birth—a state ment found also in the Zardusht-Nama—and lived in the wilder ness upon cheese (xi. 97). Plutarch speaks of his intercourse with the deity, and compares him with Lycurgus and Numa (Numa, 4). Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch's contemporary, declares that neither Homer nor Hesiod sang of the chariot and horses of Zeus so worthily as Zoroaster, of whom the Persians tell that out of love to wisdom and righteousness, he withdrew himself from men, and lived in solitude upon a mountain. The mountain was consumed by fire, but Zoroaster escaped uninjured and spoke to the multitude (vol. ii. p. 6o). Plutarch, drawing partly on Theopompus, speaks of his religion in his Isis and Osiris (cc. He gives a faithful sketch of the doctrines, mythology and dualistic system of the Magian Zoroaster.
Agathias remarks (ii. 24), with truth, that it is no longer pos sible to determine with any certainty when he lived and legislated.
secrated to the description of his life, has perished; while the biographies founded upon it in the 7th book of the Dinkard (9th century A.D.), the Sheih-Nama, and the Zardusht-Nama (13th cen tury) are full of wonders and fabulous histories and miraculous deliverances.
The personality of Zoroaster is historic, but in the later Avesta, and in writings of more recent date, he is presented in a legendary light and endowed with superhuman powers. At his appearing all nature rejoices (Yasht, 13, 93) ; he enters into conflict with the demons and rids the earth of their presence (Yasht, 17, 19) ; Satan approaches him as tempter to make him renounce his faith (Vendidad, 19, 6).
The Gathas alone within the Avesta claim to be the ipsissima verba of the prophet, and are expressly called "the Gathas of the holy Zoroaster" (Yasna, 57, 8), his actual expressions in pres ence of the assembled congregation, the last genuine survivals of the doctrinal discourses with which—as the promulgator of a new religion—he appeared at the court of King Vishtaspa.
The person of the Zoroaster in these hymns is a mere man, standing always on the solid ground of reality, whose only arms are trust in his God and the protection of his powerful allies.
He had to face forms of outward opposition, the unbelief and lukewarmness of adherents, even his own misgivings as to the truth and final victory of his cause. The range of the emotions which find their immediate expression in these hymns is wide and the whole breathes originality, is psychologically accurate and just, so that in the Gatha* we have the beginnings of the Zoro astrian religion. They give no historical account of the life and teaching of their prophet, but are general admonitions, assevera tions, solemn prophecies, directed to the faithful or to the princes, and are generally dialogues with God and the arch-angels, whom he repeatedly invokes as witnesses to his veracity with many allusions to personal events which later generations have for gotten. Their extent is limited and their meaning is frequently dubious and obscure.