Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis - ImagoMundi

C Y C L I C A L T I M E I N M A Z D A I S M A N D I S M A I L I S M
different theological interpretations of an identical situation. 8 Nevertheless,
from the standpoint of pure Mazdaism, an attempt at reduction was conceivable;
such an attempt results in a schema that might be designated as
Mazdeanized Zervanism or as Zervanized Mazdaism.
The schema of integral Zervanism undergoes in turn certain dramaturgical
changes: the idea of a mediation appears in the person of the Angel Mithras,
who, according to the Zoroastrian theology of our times, shows certain
points of resemblance to the Archangel Michael. 9 Finally, the unity that
gives rise to the two Contraries is situated no longer at the level of the
supreme godhead but at the level of an emanated angelic hypostasis: this
hypostasis will assume the role of a Saved Savior, a kind of Archangel
Michael who has had to gain his own victory over himself, and the periods
of cyclical time must mark this victory in the person of all his followers.
This is the form that the drama and the role of the angel of humanity will
assume in Ismaili Gnosis.
In the mythohistory of pure Mazdaism, cyclical time is punctuated by •
three great acts which extend over twelve millennia and constitute the ages
of the world. The first of these acts is the primordial Creation (Bundahishn),
encompassing the prelude of the first three millennia, during which the
Creation is established in its menok, subtle and celestial, state. In the ensuing
period from the fourth to the sixth millennium, the Creation is transferred
to the getik, or earthly, state. Then comes the second act: the catastrophe.
The Negator, whose menace had risen up from the abyss at the very
outset of the spiritual Creation, succeeds in entering and ravaging material
creation. This second act constitutes the period of the "mixture" (gume-
8 A. Christensen tends toward a reduction of this sort in L'Iran sous les Sassanides
(2nd edn., Copenhagen, 1944), p. 154, n. 4; p. 437. Cf. Nyberg, "Questions," II, pp. 81,
82; and Die Religionen des alien Irans, German tr. by H. H. Schaeder (Leipzig, 1938),
pp. 388ff. (Zervanism as the cosmogonic doctrine of the Median magi before they became
Zoroastrians). J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les Mages hellenises (Paris, 1938), Vol. I,
pp. 63s. E. Benveniste, The Persian Religion according to the Chief Greek Texts (Paris,
1929), ch. 4 (Zervanism as the doctrine of the Magi recorded by Plutarch); Cumont's
arguments to the contrary—Les Mages hellenists, Vol. I, pp. 65-66, and Vol. II, p. 72,
n. 1—are not conclusive. See also Benveniste, pp. 77, 97: Zervan in Soghdian Buddhism
and in Manichaeism; here, we may note, the question of the historical existence of a
"Zervanite church" does not arise, for we have set out to consider only the pure
philosophical schematization of certain concepts and their phenomenological connection
with the mode of existence that they indicate.
9 J. J. Modi, "St. Michael of the Christians and Mithra of the Zoroastrians," in Anthropological
Papers, Part 1 (Bombay, 1911), pp. 173-90; cf. below, nn. 51 and 55, and
Part 2, p. 41, n. 47.
cishn), which we are still experiencing. 10 It will end with the act of final
"separation" (vicarishn), ushered in by the Saoshyant or Saviors born from
the race of Zarathustra in the course of the three last millennia, and by the
"transfiguration" of the world (frashokart) .11
In the Mazdean book of Genesis, the Bundahishn, we read as follows:
It hath been revealed that during the unlimited Time, Ohrmazd
was in the heights, adorned with omniscience and goodness and
surrounded by light. This light is the place and abode of Ohrmazd.
Some call it the infinite Light (asar roshnih). This omniscience
and this goodness are the garment of Ohrmazd. Some call it the
Religion {Den). . . . The Time of the garment is infinite, for the
goodness and religion of Ohrmazd have existed as long as Ohrmazd
himself; they still exist and they will always exist." 12
Here the unlimited Time is neither a principle superior to Ohrmazd nor
is it his creation; it is an aspect of his illimitable ness; it expresses his very
being, which is also expressed by his omniscience and by the infinite light
in which he resides. However, a play of transparitions, which, as we have
said, are possible only in this dimension of thought, ultimately put us in
the presence of time as a plastically defined figure. From eternal Time and
in the image of eternal Time, Ohrmazd created the limited Time he required
to frustrate the challenge of Ahriman; he was said to have created it "in the
form of a youth of fifteen, luminous, clear-eyed, of tall stature, full of a
vigor resulting from a perfect endowment and not from a brutal and violent
nature." 13 If in this vision of a youth we seem to discern a Mazdean form
of the puer aeternus motif, we need only recall that the age of fifteen connotes
the aspect which our texts give to the "resuscitated ones," 14 in order to
realize that the "Person of Time" merely exemplifies the ideal dimension
of a being of Light.
But more than this: if we give heed to the equivalences that are sub-
10 On the six millennia as the duration of the actual world, cf. "Apocalypse d'Hystaspe,"
in Bidez and Cumont, Les Mages hellenises, Vol. II, p. 364.
11 Cf. Nyberg, "Questions," I, pp. 210-11; G. Messina, Libro apocalittico persiano Ayatkar
i Zamaspik (Rome, 1939), pp. 118-20.
12 "Questions," I, pp. 206-7; for a somewhat different translation see Messina, Zamaspik,
p. 85, n. 3; cf. the text of the Zatsparam, ch. 1, in Zaehner, "Zurvanica," II, pp. 576-
77; A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroastrian Studies (New York, 1928), pp. 114-15; and Junker
"Iranische Quellen," pp. 127-28.
13 Cf. Nyberg, "Questions," I, p. 231.
14 Ayatkar i Zamaspik, ch. 17, verse 16.