History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 20

by Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla

 

CHAPTER XX

 

SPENTA MAINYU

 

Belief in an intermediary spirit between God and the world. From the days of Thales (about 600 b.c.), the head of the school of Miletus, the Greek thinkers were in touch with the Orient. The Ionians were in close contact with the Persians. Pythagoras, we have seen, was believed by the classical writers to have been the pupil of Zoroaster, though several centuries intervened between them. Numenius of Apamea says that Pythagoras and Plato reproduce the ancient wisdom of the Magi and Brahmans, Egyptians and Jews. Alexandria became later a cosmopolitan seat of learning, and the intellectual East and West met there It was here that Judaism and afterwards Christianity were Hellenized. The wisdom of the East was held in high esteem at Alexandria. Persian influence, it seems, had been felt in Greece in the early formative period of its philosophy. Zarathushtra, we have noticed, postulated a quasi-independent spirit intermediary between the godhead and the universe. Anaxagoras calls it noûs, acting between God and the world as the regulating principle of existence. Plato says in his Timæus that the universe becomes an organism through the universal World-Soul that is created by the Demiurge, the Supreme Deity.

The Old Testament refers to the Spirit of Yahweh.^[1] Philo Judaeus unites the Greek and Jewish ideas about Logos and says that Logos is the first-born Son of God and acts as a vicegerent of God between God and the world. He is the prototypal Man after whose image all men are created. Logos is something more than Plato's Idea of the Good, because, like Spenta Mainyu, he is creatively active. In common with Spenta Mainyu, Logos is not a personal being, and like Spenta Mainyu again, he appears sometimes as identified with God and at other times seems to be an attribute of God. The Avestan texts refer to Spenta Mainyu and his adversary Angra Mainyu as thworeshtar or the fashioners or cutters and, speaking about the work of Logos, Philo speaks of him as Tomeus, 'the cutter,' employing the word of the same meaning. Again as Spenta Mainyu or the spirit of light is shadowed by the opposite spirit of darkness, so Logos, says Philo, is the Shekinah or Glory or Light of God, but he is also the darkness or shadow of God. This is so because, he adds, the creature reveals only half the creator and hides the other half. In the Book of Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom, identical with the Greek Logos, is the divine essence, living a quasi-independent existence in God and side by side with God. She works as the active agent of God in the creation of the world. In Mithraism, Mithra held the position of the Mediator between God who was unknowable and unapproachable and mankind. He fashioned the world as Demiurge. The intermediary Spirit of God occurs throughout the New Testament. Numenius of Apamea, writing in the second century, says that God has bestowed divine qualities upon a second god who acts in the world as the power for good. The Supreme God or the First Principle, he adds, works in the spiritual world, whereas the activity of the second god extends to the spiritual as well as material world. Origen, writing shortly after him, says that God created Logos or the Son. His relation to the Father is the same as that which exists between Ahura Mazda and Spenta Mainyu. The Son or Logos, says Origen, is co-eternal and co-equal with the Father, but the Son is lesser than the Father. Clement of Alexandria says that Logos, represents the will, power, and energy of God. He is the creator on behalf of God. He has introduced harmony in the universe and conducts its affairs as the pilot.

The relation between Ahura Mazda and his Holy Spirit. It remains as subtle in the Younger Avestan texts as it was in the Gathas. We have already seen in the treatment of this highly abstract concept, as it is portrayed in the Gathic texts, that the term Spenta Mainyu either designated Ahura Mazda as his divine attribute, or occurred as a being separate from the godhead. The Later Avestan texts, it seems to us, lead us to the idea that Spenta Mainyu has no independent existence apart from Ahura Mazda, in other words, as shown above, he is not a personal being. The Later Avesta, moreover, as we shall see in the subsequent pages, teaches that all earthly and heavenly beings, belonging to the Kingdom of Goodness, including Ahura Mazda himself, have their Fravashis, or Guardian Spirits. Spenta Mainyu alone in the realm of the good is without his Guardian Spirit. Furthermore, Spenta Mainyu does not receive homage and invocation from man, as do Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas, and the Yazatas. In one passage the faithful dedicate their thoughts, words, deeds, and all to him.^[2] Spenta Mainyu, therefore, may be taken as an attribute of Ahura Mazda which is either conjointly used with the godhead as his distinguishing epithet, or occurs alone by itself to designate the Supreme Being. In this latter use, it may be said, Spenta Mainyu represents Ahura Mazda, in the same manner as the royal title 'His Majesty' is frequently used as a substitute for the name of a king.

In contradistinction to the evil creation of Angra Mainyu, or the Evil Spirit, the Avestan texts speak of the good creation as belonging to Spenta Mainyu, the Holy Spirit.^[3] He maintains the sky, the waters, the earth, the plants, and the children to be born.^[4] The stars also are spoken of as the creatures of the Holy Spirit.^[5] He created Mithra's chariot, inlaid with stars and made of heavenly substance.^[6] He is spoken of as the holier of the two spirits.^[7] He struggles with Angra Mainyu to seize the Kingly Glory.^[8] Characteristic of the highly developed type of dualism of the Younger Avestan period, we find that the two rival spirits divide their sphere of influence in regard to the wind, or Vayu. The moderate wind that is conducive of good is called the wind of Spenta Mainyu,^[9] and only to this good part of Vayu are the faithful to offer sacrifice.^[10] Snavidhka, a tyrant foe of the Iranian hero Keresaspa, haughtily exclaims that if he ever grew to manhood he would make the heavens his chariot, convert the earth into a wheel, bring down Spenta Mainyu, or the Holy Spirit, from the shining paradise, and make Angra Mainyu, or the Evil Spirit, rush up from the dreary hell, and compel them to draw his chariot.^[11] In a couple of instances Ahura Mazda is depicted as speaking of the Holy Spirit as a part of himself. Speaking about the great work of the Fravashis, or the Guardian Spirits, Ahura Mazda says that had not the Fravashis helped him, the wicked Druj would have smitten the good creation, and it would never have been possible for Spenta Mainyu to deal a blow to Angra Mainyu.^[12] Ahura Mazda sacrifices unto Vayu and asks from this angel of wind a boon, that he may smite the creation of Angra Mainyu, but that none may smite the creation of Spenta Mainyu.^[13]

The superlative forms, Spentotema Mainyu,^[14] or Spenishta Mainyu, meaning the Most Holy Spirit, are spoken of as Ahura Mazda's attributes.^[15]

 

1. Genesis 1. 2.
2. Ys. 58. 6.
3. Ys. 1. 16; 8. 6; 11. 13; 27. 2; 57. 17; Vsp. 12. 4; Yt. 6. 2; 8. 48; 11. 12; 13. 76; 15. 3, 43, 44; Vd. 3. 20; 5. 33; 13. 1, 2, 5, 6, 16.
4. Yt. 13. 28, 29.
5. Ys. 1. 11; 3. 13; 4. 16; 7. 13; 22. 13; Yt. 12. 32.
6. Yt. 10. 143.
7. Ys. 19. 9.
8. Yt. 19. 46.
9. Ys. 22. 24; 25. 5.
10. Yt. 15. 5, 42, 57, 58; Sr. 1. 21; 2. 21.
11. Yt. 19. 43, 44.
12. Yt. 13. 12, 13.
13. Yt. 15. 2, 3.
14. Ys. 1. 1; 37. 3.
15. Ys. 19. 1; Yt. 1. 1; 14. 1, 34, 42; Vd. 2. 1; 7. 1; 9. 1; 10. 1; 14. 1; 18. 14; Afr. 4. 4.