CHAPTER XXIX
THE RENOVATION
The greatest of the renovators. Zoroaster in his religion postulated a renovation of the universe, a new dispensation in which the world will become perfect at the last day. We learn from Diogenes, on the authority of Theopompus and Eudemus, that the classical authors were familiar with the Magian doctrine of the millennium and the final restoration of the world as early as in the fourth century b.c.[1] Plutarch draws his materials on this millennial doctrine from Theopompus.[2] In the Later Avestan texts we sometimes miss a clear definition of the collective judgment of the souls and final regeneration. But they furnish us with some stray passages which cursorily deal with the work of the Renovation at the millennium and of the saviour renovators who will bring this to pass.
The world progresses towards perfection. Inequity and wrong are to be ultimately supplanted by equity and right. The world is to be restored to a veritable heaven on earth. The goodness of Ahura Mazda makes it imperative that the entire creation shall finally be saved. The faithful are confident of this final event, and they know that this accomplishment will be the end of the world, when right shall triumph supreme. In his daily prayers the true believer prays that the fire that bums in his house may remain shining till the day of the good Renovation.[3] Spenta Armaiti, the genius of earth, is likewise implored to receive and to rear the seed that men emit in their dreams, and ultimately to deliver this back as holy men at the time of Renovation.[4]
According to the teachings of Zarathushtra, every man or woman is his or her own saviour. Salvation depends entirely upon the righteous life of the individual. Besides this individual salvation there is to be the universal salvation in which the reno-
288
