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sasanid kings and the zoroastrian priests 649
to the ordeal of molten metal to refute heretics whose precise doctrine is
disputed. It would have been quite natural to visualize Aturpat as standing
at the head of a mighty Zoroastrian hierarchic organization, authorized by
the king himself to administer the institutions of the only fully recognized
official state religion. On the other hand, the hierarchy within what we
habitually conceive of as ‘the Zoroastrian church’ probably did not become
fully established until much later. It is only under Yazdgard II (439–57) that
the high priest Mihr-Shapur, who had already distinguished himself under
previous reigns as a persecutor of Christians, is called modaban mobad (magupatan
magupat), the earliest reliable attestation of this title. But even then the
relative positions of mobeds and herbeds in the organization of Zoroastrian
clergy are not entirely clear. The title herbedan herbed, conferred upon
Zurvandad, the son of Yazdgard’s powerful prime minister, Mihr-Narseh,
has been interpreted as evidence for a hierarchy distinct from that of the
mobeds within the Zoroastrian church.
The Zoroastrian priesthood appears to have gained a truly undisputed
position as the sole representative of the one and only state religion in the
course of the fifth century. It is precisely at this time that a sudden proliferation
of Avestan names borne by members of the royal house, and the
appearance of the title kavi (kay) on the coins of its kings, mark a crucial
stage in the fabrication of the Kayanid genealogy as a source of legitimation
of the Sasanid dynasty. Yet the Zoroastrian priesthood was soon to
suffer a severe blow under Kavadh I (488–96; 499–531), during the
Mazdakite revolt (on which, see p. 655 below). The reign of Khusro I
appears to have been a period of harmony between the monarchy and the
Zoroastrian priesthood, but it was a priesthood restored by the king following
the Mazdakite débâcle, and consequently more dependent on the
king than before. Under Khusro’s successors, Zoroastrian influence seems
to have declined: Khusro II (590–628), rather than follow his predecessors
in the grand-scale establishment of fire-temples staffed with a vast multitude
of herbedan, relied heavily on Christians, who included his favourite
wife, his finance officer and his chief general; Zoroastrian tradition, as
reflected in the apocalyptic composition Jamasp Namagh, branded him as an
unjust and tyrannical king. 31
The personality of Mihr-Narseh, Yazdgard II’s prime minister, highlights
the problem of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the Zoroastrian religion of
the Sasanid period. From Armenian sources dealing with the persecution he
launched against the Christians in Armenia, it is plain that he was an adherent
of Zurvan i Akanarag – that is, Infinite Time: 32 his son’s name,
Zurvandad, is certainly a theophoric name, celebrating this rather shadowy
31 Duchesne-Guillemin, in Yar-Shater (1983) 896; cf. Boyce in Yar-Shater (1983) 1160.
32 Elishe Vardapet in Langlois (1869) 190–1; cf. Eznik of Kolb in Boyce (1984) 97–8.
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