MAGIANS"reliance on Mihr" is paralleled by the motto "reliance on Yazdan"
found on fourth-century seals.^54 The yazdiin were worshiped with food
offerings and sacrifices,55 and provided the divine element in theo-
phoric names for Magians and Manichaeans. Names formed with
Yazdan (sg. Yazet, N.P. Izad) were becoming increasingly popular in
the late Sasanian period, such as Yazdandadh, a son of Khusraw
Anushirvan; Yazdanbakhsh, an official of Hurniizd IV; or Yazdagerd
III himself. S6
Expressions of the primacy of Ohrmazd are as old as the Avestan
texts themselves,where he is called the supreme Yazata. The belief in
a pantheon of deities subordinated to Ohrmazd was gradually trans-
formed by the Magian priests in the Sasanian period into a system of
angelic beings emanated by Ohrmazd.^57 This transformation was prob-
ably not complete by the end of the Sasanian period and proceeded
at different rates for different people-both socially and geographi-
cally. For several Sasanian monarchs the old gods were more than
mere angels. The common people were probably still polytheists who
actually worshiped the sun, stars, earth, fire, and water.^58
More sophisticated interpretations that take the primacy of Ohr-
mazd in a monotheistic direction by reducing the other gods to aspects
of Ohrmazd occur in apologetic contexts with monotheistic Jews and
Christians.^59 Such an expression occurred in a debate between a Ma-
gian spokesman and George of Izla (Mihramgushnasp) at Mada'in in- The Magian represented his religion as monotheistic and an-
swere~ the charge that Magians deified the Fire by declaring that fire
was not considered to be a god but that they only worshiped God
through fire, as Christians worshiped their God through the cross.
George of Izla, who had been raised as a Magian, quoted the Avesta
to him, which showed that there, indeed, the Fire is called a god. The
Magian, caught on his own ground, changed his position to say that
fire was venerated because it was of the same nature as Ohrmazd.^60
Dualist expressions of an ethical conflict between good and evil also
54 Bivar, Western Asiatic Seals, pp. 45-46, 80.
55 Casartelli, Philosophy, p. 87.
56 See Justi, Namenbuch, pp. 146-49.
57 Casartelli, Philosophy, p. 19; Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion de I'Iran ancien,
pp. 290, 371.
58 Braun, Persischer Miirtyrer, pp. 1-3, 69; Hoffmann, Persischer Miirryrer, p. 88.
59 Hoffmann, Persischer Miirtyrer, p. 42.
60 Ibid., pp. 109-10. This apology is preserved by Tha'alibi (Ghurar, p. 258) who
says that Zoroaster gave fire importance as the means to approach God, since it came
from His light and was one of the principal elements.