Description

The idea of an impending ‘doomsday’ or ‘the end of the world’, is one that has long captivated and horrified the human mind, and continues to do so today, perhaps on a larger scale than ever before. Many religious chronologies (e.g. Hindu, Mayan, Babylonian) lean toward endless or repetitive cycles of time, often involving repetitive cycles of destruction, by fire, flood, etc. In contrast, the Apocalypse envisions a linear concept of time leading up to a single, dramatic conclusion. When we find ourselves thinking like that, we’re drawing upon some distinct cultural sources – the Persian religion of the prophet Zoroaster, and the astrology of their hereditary priesthood, the Magi.
Hidden within the vast body of Persian religious literature is an ancient astrological eschatology in which time is divided into millennial ages, each ruled over by successive signs of the zodiac. The rise and fall of dynasties, kingdoms and empires, the appearance of great prophets and the revelations of new religions all unfold in timely order within Persian astrological millenarianism, culminating in the ultimate battle between good and evil at the end of the world. Persian Zoroastrianism and specifically, Zurvan Zoroastrianism appear to be the specific contexts in which these ideas originally arose.
These ancient Persian beliefs remain current today within Christianity, Islam, Judaism, the Baha’i faith, and the New Age movement, fueling contemporary conversations on the Apocalypse, the millennia, the astrological world ages, the final battle at the end of the world, and all manner of messianism. As the Persians were the dominant culture in the ancient near east for nearly one thousand years, incorporating most of the ancient world at one time or another within their vast Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sassanian empires, it is no surprise that their culture and religion had such widespread and continuing influence. What is surprising is our modern ignorance and neglect of it.