What is Zurvanism? The Persian Doctrine of Infinite Time
Zurvanism was a major theological school of the late Achaemenid and Sasanian periods that derived both Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu from a higher principle, Zurvan, the deified Infinite Time. The orthodox Zoroastrian church condemned it as a heresy, and the Bundahishn was compiled in part to refute it, but the doctrine was enormously influential in late antique thought, and its echoes are still being worked out by scholars of Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism. The cluster on Zoroastrianism treats the religious tradition in detail, and the cluster on Persian mythology and Ahura Mazda treats the pantheon in detail.
The standard scholarly treatments are Shaul Shaked’s Dualism in Transformation (1994), Mary Boyce’s Zoroastrians (1975) and her entry in the Cambridge History of Iran III.2, and James R. Russell’s Zoroastrianism in Armenia (1987), which has the Armenian source material. Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart, eds., Les textes vieil-avestiques (1988–91), and the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry on Zurvanism, are the principal references. The recently published Texts from the Tehran Museum (M. Macuch and others, 2018) has added some new fragments of Middle Persian Zurvanite material.
The doctrine of Zurvan
The Zurvanite position is, at its root, a philosophical reformulation of Zoroastrian dualism. The orthodox position, preserved in the Bundahishn and the Denkard, is that Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu are independent and co-eternal, and that the world is the theatre of their battle. The Zurvanite position, by contrast, derived both spirits from a higher principle, Zurvan, the “Infinite Time” or “Infinite Space,” and reduced the cosmic struggle to a temporal process. Zurvan is, in the Zurvanite doctrine, the father of the twins Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda) and Ahriman (Angra Mainyu), and the two are born from Zurvan’s thousand-year sacrifice: Ohrmazd from his hope, Ahriman from his subsequent doubt. The myth is preserved in the Bundahishn (which tells the story only to refute it) and in a fragment of the Greek Theosophia of Pseudo-Zoroaster (4th–5th c. CE).
The Zurvanite doctrine is preserved in a number of Middle Persian, Armenian, and Greek sources. The most important Middle Persian source is the Zand-i Wahman Yasn (the Pahlavi commentary on the Bahman Yasht, Yasht 2), the apocalyptic text in which the doctrine of the thousand-year cycles of time is set out. The most important Greek source is the Theosophia of Pseudo-Zoroaster, which describes the Zurvanite doctrine in detail. The most important Armenian source is the Refutation of the Sects (5th century CE) of Eznik of Kolb — not the eighteenth-century History of the House of Artsrunik of Zenob Glak, which is sometimes mistakenly cited for the Zurvanite doctrine. Yeghishe (Elišē), the Armenian historian of the fifth century, also preserves Zurvanite material in his account of the Persian religious tradition.
The history of Zurvanism
The origins of Zurvanism are not entirely clear, but the doctrine is attested in the late Achaemenid and Sasanian periods, and the major development of the school occurred in the Sasanian period. The most prominent Sasanian Zurvanite is sometimes identified as Mardānfarrox, a mobad of the late fifth and early sixth century, but the identification is uncertain and the date is debated. The Zurvanite school was opposed by the orthodox Zoroastrian church, and the orthodox dasturs (the senior priests) condemned the doctrine as a heresy.
The doctrine of Zurvanism was particularly influential in the late Sasanian period, when the Sasanian church was divided over the question of the relationship between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. The famous theological council convened by Khosrow I Anushirvan in the sixth century attempted to settle the question, and the Bundahishn, the Middle Persian book of primal creation, was compiled in the late Sasanian or early Islamic period to defend the orthodox position against the Zurvanite heresy. Whether the council actually produced a doctrinal definition is disputed; the Denkard’s account of the council is later and probably not reliable on the details.
The doctrine of Zurvanism was a major influence on the development of Manichaeism, the religion founded by Mani in the third century CE. The Manichaean doctrine of the two principles, the Light and the Darkness, is related to the Zurvanite dualism, though the relationship is more complex than simple derivation. The Manichaean cosmology, with its two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness, draws on the Iranian religious tradition broadly, of which Zurvanism is one strand.
Zurvanism and the problem of evil
The Zurvanite doctrine was, in its essence, an attempt to solve the problem of evil in the Zoroastrian tradition. The orthodox Zoroastrian position, with its two independent and co-eternal spirits, the Spenta Mainyu and the Angra Mainyu, raised a sharp problem of theodicy: if Ahura Mazda is the creator of the world and the source of all goodness, where did evil come from? The orthodox answer was that evil is the work of Angra Mainyu, the independent opponent of Ahura Mazda, but this answer raised the further problem of the origin of Angra Mainyu.
The Zurvanite answer was to derive both Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu from a higher principle, Zurvan, the Infinite Time. Zurvan is, in the Zurvanite doctrine, the ultimate source of both spirits and is, in some sense, prior to the cosmic battle between good and evil. The doctrine functioned, in effect, as a monistic or monotheistic reformulation of the Zoroastrian dualism. The Zurvan is the ultimate principle, the lord of the cosmic order, and the source of both good and evil.
The Zurvanite doctrine was condemned by the orthodox Zoroastrian church. The orthodox dasturs argued that the doctrine reduced the cosmic battle to a temporal process and denied the independent existence of Angra Mainyu. The Ulamā is an Arabic/Islamic term for religious scholars and is not used of the Zoroastrian priestly establishment, which was led by the dasturs and the mobeds; using Ulamā in this Zoroastrian context is a mistake.
Zurvanism in the Greek and Latin sources
The Zurvanite doctrine was well known in the Greek and Latin sources. The Theosophia of Pseudo-Zoroaster, a late antique Greek work attributed to the prophet Zarathustra, describes the Zurvanite doctrine in detail. The Greek philosophers of the late antique period, including the Neoplatonists, were familiar with the Zurvanite doctrine, and the Zoroaster of the Greek tradition was often the Zurvanite Zoroaster, the prophet of the doctrine of the Infinite Time. The Neoplatonists and the Gnostics are different traditions and should not be lumped together; the Neoplatonists engaged with the Zurvanite doctrine on philosophical grounds, while the Gnostics’ debt to the Iranian religious tradition is more diffuse.
The Latin tradition of the Zoroaster, the Magus, the Chaldaeus, the Astrologus, and the Mathematicus was a major source of the Western tradition of magic, astrology, and philosophy. The Zoroaster of the Latin tradition was, in some sense, the Zurvanite Zoroaster, the prophet of the doctrine of the Infinite Time, and the Zoroaster of the Asclepius — the Greek-Latin Hermetic text attributed to “Apuleius” in the Latin tradition but actually a translation of the Greek logos teleios — was a major figure of the Western tradition of philosophy and religion.
The influence of Zurvanism on the Greek and Latin tradition is a major topic in the history of religion, and the figure of the Zurvanite Zoroaster, the prophet of the Infinite Time, is among the most consequential elements of the Western tradition of magic, astrology, and philosophy. The cluster on Mithraism and the Cult of Mithras treats the related cult of Mithras in the Roman world, and the cluster on the Magi, the priests of ancient Media treats the priestly class from which the tradition descends.