Zoroaster as witness image in the West: Using the cult of personality as a literary source of authority in the Western tradition.

摘要

Zoroaster, the prophet of pre-Islamic Persia, was already a legendary figure, highly reputed for his wisdom and antiquity, when his name first appeared in Europe in Greek authors of the fourth century B.C. From this date, well into the late nineteenth century A.D., Zoroaster's name was used in Europe as a validating device to support a range of philosophic, religious, and occult beliefs which were essentially the brain-children of Europeans themselves: and thus that is how it was that the West made Zoroaster a witness to the truth that it claimed for its own wisdom. The use made of Zoroaster's name was greatly expanded in its literary scope in the Hellenistic Age when he was transformed from being a theologian and religious reformer into an astronomer-astrologer, a medicine man and cosmographer, and a growing body of literature in treatment of these subjects began to appear and circulate under his name. 'Zoroaster in the West' shows that the Pythagoreans, the Platonists, the neo-Platonists, the Early Christians, the Renaissance Humanist Platonists, the European travelers to the East, the religious antagonists in the post-Reformation religious controversies, and the advocates of natural religion and the Philosophes in the Age of Enlightenment, all in their turn foisted their views and ideals on Zoroaster to validate and propagate them. 'Zoroaster in the West' shows that Anquetil Duperron's translation of the Zend-Avesta, and the advances made in Zoroastrian studies in the following century, did not materially change the public image of Zoroaster which continued to be that of a preacher of natural religion; nor did they put an end to the use made of Zoroaster's name for propagandist purposes. 'Zoroaster in the West' presents a case study in image making and the use of the 'Other', here the 'Oriental Other', to form public opinion, and to promote and/or discredit specific views. As its corollary, it also shows that the cult of personality used as a literary source of authority has played a more dominant role in shaping Europeans' thought than seems to be suggested by the claim made for rationality as a fundamentally Western phenomenon, a defining feature of European civilization, and as the matrix of Europeans' thought process.