RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESoccur in Avestan texts. Such expressions are more complete in the
Videvdat, which was composed in the Parthian period, and were elab-
orated in the Sasanian period in contrast with various forms of gnos-
ticism (especially Manichaeism). Ohrmazd was represented as the god
of light, goodness, and male interests, who was engaged in a cosmic
struggle for control of the universe with Ahriman, the god of darkness,
evil, and female interests. Human choice of good or evil would be
decisive in this conflict and people would be rewarded or punished
after death depending on their good or evil behavior. The sixth-century
Arta Wraf Namak details the sins that would be punished in Hell.
The role of Ohrmazd as creator was put into this dualist framework,
and its significance lies in contradicting the gnostic assertion that the
material world was the evil creation of a malicious deity. According
to Mazdaean doctrine, most of the material universe was the good
creation of Ohrmazd and was intended for human use and enjoyment
in the conflict with evil. Ahriman created the evil part: demons, reptiles,
amphibians, insects, vermin, and the seven planets. The most thorough
and systematic expressions of this dualist system are found in the
Mid9le Persian compositions from the ninth and tenth centuries, in
which the argument that a good creator could not possibly create or
be responsible for evil is aimed at Muslims.^61
Mazdaean doctrine was thus subject to historical development and
the question of just how dualist Mazdaean Magians were in the Sa-
sanian period depends largely on how one chooses to date the material
in the ninth-century books. Much of this material is clearly part of a
current debate with Muslims, but much of it also purports to be older
and contains specific references to the late Sasanian period. How much
of this material actually belongs to the late Sasanian period is a matter
of judgment, but the concensus among recent scholars seems to be
that the doctrines found in these books existed by the late Sasanian
period.
However, the Zurvanite tendency to assert the ultimate primacy of
the god of Time and Destiny appears to have been popular with the
upper classes because of its authoritarian implications. The form of
Zurvanism closest to Mazdaean doctrine represented Zurvan as the
61 Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, pp. 121-22; de Menasce, Denkart, pp. 183,235;
idem, "Zoroastrian Literature after the Muslim conquest," Cambridge History of Iran
(LondonJNew York, 1975), IV, 545, 548, 558; Duchesne-Guillemin, "Religion of An-
cient Iran," p. 348; Hoffmann, Persischer Martyrer, p. 88; Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight,
pp. 81-82, 179, 187,231-32.