Good vs evil Regarding issues of
theodicy Mardan-Farrukh provides a summary of Zoroastrian doctrine. This view presents
Ohrmazd, the Creator of the world, being opposed by and contested by the satanic
Ahriman. The author justifies this belief by pointing to the universal presence of good vis-à-vis bad everywhere in the world, e.g., "darkness and light, knowledge and ignorance, perfume and stench, life and death, sickness and health, justice and disorder, slavery and freedom... visible in every country and land at all times." These distinct opposites are not of function, like that of the male and female, sun and moon, but rather are of the essence. "For where there is good there cannot possibly be evil. Where light is admitted darkness is driven away." Thus the antagonistic pairing prevalent everywhere springs from the opposing natures of Ohrmazd and Ahriman. "The material world is the effect of the spiritual, and the spiritual is its cause." Accordingly, the wise and powerful Ohrmazd is not the maker of the evil that blights creation. "There is one dogma on which [Mardan-Farrukh] firmly takes his stand: God is good." Rather the Zoroastrians teach that it is his antagonist Ahriman who has corrupted the creation. The late Zoroastrian
Dastur,
Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, writes: "The author of the
Shikand Gumanik Vijar, who is himself a dualist of the most pronounced kind, strongly urges in his polemics against other religions that
good and evil can on no account have originated from one and the same source. Evil is considered to have as independent and complete existence as good; they are both primeval. They are so entirely separate from each other that neither good originates from evil, nor evil from good. Each one of them exists by itself, and entertains perpetual antagonism towards the other." Mardan-Farrukh observes that if Ohrmazd and Ahriman had created the world together or in cooperation, then Ohrmazd would be "an accomplice and confederate with Ahriman in the harm and evil which ever arise." Prior to creation Ohrmazd exists "fully complete in his own self", such that "his perfection consists in his having no need for any advantage or increase" from the outside. Hence when he
created the world it was not to obtain "any advantage or aggrandizement". Yet Ohrmazd being "wise and sagacious" his actions "cannot be irrational or unmotivated". "We must conclude," continues Mardan-Farrukh, "that the reason and occasion" for the creation of the world was "to repel and ward off" his external adversary Ahriman and defeat the evil he intends; "this is the whole reason and occasion for the act of creation." Ohrmazd's strategy is that the good creation will act as a trap to capture Ahriman and neutralize his evil. Ahriman being aggressive, rash and ignorant (he "does not know the final outcome"), as against the thoughtful and prudent Ohrmazd, certainly the ultimate result will be the triumph of good; undoubtedly creation will be restored. The entire cosmic process from the original creation by Ohrmazd and the attack by Ahriman, until the triumphant rehabilitation of physical goodness of creation, lasts twelve thousand years. Along with the
Amesha Spenta, humankind plays a vital rôle in the defeat of Druj (the Lie) and victory of
Asha (the Truth). Mardan-Farrukh notes, "The duty of the creature is to understand and perform the will of the creator, and to abstain from what is disliked by him." To do so "is to preserve the soul." The will of the creator is known through his religion. From its care "for the soul are manifested [its] grandeur" and value, and "the compassion and [mercy] of the sacred being."
Method The author at the start announces his intention to find the truth, which brings an "inward dignity". Yet by the "thorough understanding of the truth" he means the "blessedness and truth of the good religion" first taught by
Zarathustra. The author does follow up on this quest later in his book. At one point Mardan-Farrukh describes several specific approaches to discovering the true (the matter at issue being the existence of the "exalted sacred being"). "[A] knowledge of anything is acquired in three modes: by knowing what is
inevitable, or by knowing what is
analogous, or by what is
possible and fit to exist." Later he adds the obvious: the direct
tangibility of nature. An example of
inevitable knowledge is "once one is one, and twice two is four" and within the inevitable it is not possible to say that sometime or someplace twice two will be five or three. Knowledge by
analogy announces something invisible derived from the visible through similarity or resemblance, e.g., from the presence of a thing made one may infer the absent maker. Information about what is
possible and fit to exist seems to rely on the trustworthiness and good character of the person testifying. This attention to methods (logic,
analogy and inference,
testimony, and tangible evidence) demonstrates some respectful rigor and craft in persuasion.
Sophistry Mardan-Farrukh addresses "the assertors of the non-existence of a sacred being" or the
atheists. Some atheists are said to believe "that there is no reward for good works, no punishment of sin, no heaven and hell, and no stimulator of good works and crime. Besides this, that things are only worldly, and there is no spirit." Mardan-Farrukh responds "that to be made without a maker... is as impossible as to prepare what is written without a writer." As to "that there is no recompense of good works and punishment of crime" he responds that "no one whatever is seen that has come... from death back to life, and it is not possible to say so." Further, Mardan-Farrukh invokes what he calls in humankind "the manifestation of the maintenance of a hope for a supreme inspection over mankind, and indeed, over wild animals, birds, and quadrupeds." The
sophist may argue that no distinctions can be made, as honey is sweet, but "bitter to those abounding in bile" or that bread is both pleasant "to the hungry and unpleasant to the surfeited." Yet the wise say, 'Even this statement of you sophists, about the jaundiced nature of everything, is alike jaundiced, and there is no truth in it."
Islam As
Muslim regimes ruled in the Iran of Mardan-Farrukh, he did not mention Islam by name in his critique. Zoroastrians lived under increasing pressure at the time Mardan-Farrukh was writing: "[L]ate in the ninth century the tide began to ebb swiftly for the Zoroastrians, with Islam now enjoying the full support of temporal power everywhere. It was then that the founding fathers of the
Parsi community left their homeland to seek religious freedom in exile in India, and thereafter those who held by their ancient faith in Iran were steadily ground down into the position of a small, deprived, and harassed minority, lacking all privileges or consideration." As would be expected given his prior chapters on
theodicy, he faults the type of
monotheism practiced by Islam because it posits an all-powerful Deity who creates the world and apparently the evil in it, so that (as he puts it) "good works and crime, truth and falsehood, life and death, good and evil are owing to him." Mardan-Farrukh alludes to passages in the Qur'an where it seems to say that the Deity may lead people astray. Relentlessly from different points of view and using various illustrations, Mardan-Farrukh asks why the
sacred being, with Divine wisdom and concern for the happiness of humankind, would have chosen freely to create the world as it is, a dangerous and contentious realm where evil exists and people suffer. That is, if "no opponent or adversary of his existed" then by reason the
sacred being would be the only party responsible for the calamities endured by humankind. Humans "with little knowledge and little wisdom... so far as they are able, do not let the lion and the wolf and other noxious creatures in among their own young ones... ." Yet then, "why has the merciful sacred being now let... the demons in upon his own... ?" When he placed
Adam in paradise, "why was not that
garden made by him fortified and strong, so that that deluder [Satan] could not have gotten into it?"
Judaism Mardan-Farrukh likewise brings his criticism of a type of monotheism to the Jewish texts. Here, he challenges the
creation story of the Bible. Of creation out of nothing in six days, he asks: if God needed only to command and it arises, "to what was that delay of six days owing? ...the existence of that delay of six days is very ill-seeming." Accordingly, because of the use of time, "it is not fitting to speak of his producing [the world] from nothing." Continuing along these lines, Mardan-Farrukh says of the Biblical God, "It is manifest that he was not light," by inference from God's reaction to light following his creation of it. Mardan-Farrukh paraphrases from the Jewish
Torah, and concludes that regarding light God "considered it for the reason that he had not seen it before." Not stated here is that the Zoroastrian creator God, Ohrmazd, is essentially associated with light. A narration in some detail he gives of the story of
Adam and Eve in the garden and their expulsion from it. Mardan-Farrukh notes that God made Adam and Eve and thus made their inclinations, and that God commanded them not to eat of a certain tree, yet nonetheless they disobeyed. For this reason, he observes of the Biblical God that his "will and command are inconsistent and unadapted, one to the other." Hence the Biblical God is "manifestly an opponent and adversary to his own will." Therefore, "to indulge in wrath about [Adam and Eve] is unreasonable." Mardan-Farrukh also finds fault with this story in that the curse of God on Adam affects everyone, "reaches unlawfully over people of every kind at various periods." In this vein, he states about the Biblical God, "This is what he says about his own nature, that is, 'I am the Lord, seeking vengeance, and retaliating vengeance, and I retaliate vengeance sevenfold upon the children, and one does not forget my original vengeance.'" In unspoken contrast would be the Zoroastrian Ohrmazd, "a wise Being whose actions were held to be wholly just and accessible to reason."
Christianity Mardan-Farrukh himself notes that his unfavorable remarks on the type of monotheism held by Judaism and by Islam would apply as well to Christianity. During the prior
Sasanid era (224–651), "non-Zoroastrians frequently occasioned heated polemics in which virulent criticism and derisive terms were exchanged between the Zoroastrian priests on the one side and the prelates of the rival faith on the other." In the case of Christianity, contention was not only religious, but military. "There was a state of perennial war between Sasanian Persia and Byzantine Rome, which had embraced Christianity." A prime instance would be the border region of
Armenia, which had included Zoroastrian believers since the Persian
Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330); centuries later despite Sasanid pressure, Armenia converted to Christianity (after 300) and took the Byzantine side. In general Zoroastrian arguments contra Christianity first developed in the strong and prosperous Sasanid Empire; however, following several centuries under Islam, Zoroastrian fortunes had declined drastically. Mardan-Farrukh first questions the virgin birth, concluding skeptically "the origin of their religion has all come forth from the testimony of a woman, which was given about her own condition." He demonstrates a studied knowledge of the Christian doctrine of the
Incarnation, although the premise of
God taking the status of human being evokes no response, other than to call it "very strange". About the
crucifixion ("death and execution on a tree") and its "resurrection" message for humankind, its 'brutality' and its "disgrace" offend Mardan-Farrukh. He questions why, from all the possible ways there are to signal human resurrection, God would want to choose to suffer such a death, if God is indeed omnipotent. If so, he asks why God did not make it "without doubt" and "clear knowledge" to humankind? Mardan-Farrukh continues, asking rhetorically if God chose such a death "through the will of his enemies" why does he curse them? Should they not be rewarded? Mardan-Farrukh next challenges the doctrine of the
Trinity, "the father and son and pure wind". Yet he begins without finesse: "If it be proper for three to be one, that implies that it is certainly possible for three to be nine... ." He questions how a son could be equal to the father; then he discusses the trinity and the crucifixion. After a
theodicean analysis similar to his about Adam and Eve (see the Judaic section above), Mardan-Farrukh observes that "the sacred being himself created the executioners of his son," and concludes that these enemies then slew "the
Messiah, who is the son, through the will of the father." The author's interpretation here resembles aspects of the Christian
heresy fostered by the 2nd century
gnostic Marcion. Mardan-Farrukh's analysis of free will in Christianity likewise (absent Ahriman) results in his ascribing to God responsibility for sins committed by humankind. Next he discusses
St. Paul (Pâvarôs), quoting him thus, "Not the good works which I desire, but the iniquity which I do not desire, I do. And it is not I that do so, but that which is collected within me does it, because I always see that it is striving with me day and night." Mardan-Farrukh may well have associated St. Paul's feeling of an iniquity "within me" to
Ahriman, for in the first half of the
Shkand-Gumanik Vichar he states (as a proof of the existence of metaphysical evil), "[A] knowledge of the existence of an opponent of the creatures [i.e., Ahriman] is obtainable from the innermost recesses of the body of man... " which may be observed. His critique of Christianity concludes with illustrations that seek to demonstrate a dualism partially embedded in Christian scriptures, or as he says, "The word of the Messiah is specially inconsistently a demonstrator as regards the two original evolutions" [of Ohrmazd and of Ahriman]. "[T]hey say, from the words of the Messiah, that the original evolution from the sacred being is light and goodness; evil and darkness are separate from him." Mardan-Farrukh quotes the Messiah, speaking to his human opponents: "I am appointed by that sacred being doing good works. Why do you not hear those words of mine? Only because you are from the iniquitous one it is not possible for you to hear them, and you wish to do the will of your own father. By him truth is not spoken; whatever he speaks he tells a lie of it, therefore you are false yourselves together with your father. As for me, who speak the truth, you do not believe it of me. And he who is from the sacred being hears the words of the sacred being, but you, because you are not from the sacred being, do not hear my words." Mardan-Farrukh immediately adds, "By these sayings it is demonstrated by him that there are two original evolutions" [of Ohrmazd and of Ahriman], one which produces the Messiah, and one producing his opponents. Next the parable of the tree that bears good fruit is given: "[F]or every tree becomes manifest by its fruit, if it be of merit and if it be of offensiveness." Again he quotes the Messiah: "[E]very tree which the father has not sown should be dug up, and should be cast into the fire." Mardan-Farrukh concludes, "Wherefore it is fitting to understand from these words that there is a tree, which the father has not sown; that it is necessary to dig up and cast away." Apparently our author is indicating an analogy to the cosmic contention between good and evil of Zoroastrian teaching, so that here Ohrmazd will surely dig up and cast away trees sown by Ahriman. Finally, Mardan-Farrukh quotes the Messiah: "Our father, that art in the sky, let thy empire arise! And may it be thy will that shall take place on earth as in the sky! Also give us daily bread! And do not bring us to a cause of doubt!" He then continues: "From these words it is evident that his will is not so unalloyed on earth as in the sky. Also this, that the cause of doubt of mankind is not owing to the sacred being." So does the author work to appropriate to the Zoroastrian dualist view the words of the Christian Messiah, i.e., that Ahriman has corrupted the earth and injected doubt into mankind.
Manichees ==Perspectives==