ovde - vera znanje mir

Western perceptions
In classical antiquity
The name Zoroaster was famous in classical antiquity, and a number of different Zoroasters - all
described as having occult powers - appear in historiographic accounts.
In Pliny’s Natural History, Zoroaster is said to have laughed on the day of his birth. He lived in
the wilderness and enjoyed exploring it from a young age. Plutarch compares him with Lycurgus
and Numa Pompilius (Numa, 4). Plutarch, drawing partly on Theopompus, speaks of Zoroaster in
Isis and Osiris: In this work, the prophet is empowered by trust in his God and the protection of
his allies. He faces outward opposition and unbelief, and inward doubt.
The works of Zoroaster had a significant influence on Greek philosophy and Roman philosophy.
The ancient Greek writer Eudoxus of Cnidus and the Latin writer Pliny the Elder praised
Zoroaster’s philosophy as “the most famous and most useful.” Plato learnt of Zoroaster’s
philosophy through Eudoxus and incorporated some of it into his own Platonic realism. [18] In the
third century BC, however, Colotes accused Plato’s The Republic of plagiarizing parts of (what is
attributed to) Zoroaster’s On Nature, such as the Myth of Er. [18][19] Plato’s contemporary,
Heraclides Ponticus, wrote a text called Zoroaster based on Zoroaster’s philosophy in order to
express his disagreement with Plato on natural philosophy. [20]
In the post-classical era
Zoroaster was known as a sage, magician, and miracle-worker in post-Classical Western culture.
Though almost nothing was known of his ideas until the late 18th century, by that time his name
was already associated with lost ancient wisdom. Zoroaster appears as “Sarastro” in Mozart’s
opera Die Zauberflöte, which has been noted for its Masonic elements, where he represents moral
order (cf. Asha) in opposition to the “Queen of the Night.”
He is also the subject of the opera Zoroastre, by Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire promoted research into Zoroastrianism in the belief that it
was a form of rational Deism, preferable to Christianity. With the translation of the Avesta by
Abraham Anquetil-Duperron, Western scholarship of Zoroastrianism began.
In the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's seminal work Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke
Zarathustra) (1885), Nietzsche creates a characterization of Zarathustra as the mouthpiece for
Nietzsche's own ideas against morality. Nietzsche did so because—so says Nietzsche in his
autobiographical Ecce Homo (IV/Schicksal.3)—Zarathustra was a moralist ("was the exact reverse
of an immoralist" like Nietzsche) and because "in his teachings alone is truthfulness upheld as the
highest virtue." Zarathustra "created" morality in being the first to reveal it, "first to see in the
struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things." Nietzsche sought to
overcome the morality of Zarathustra by using the Zarathustrian virtue of truthfulness; thus
Nietzsche found it piquant to have his Zarathustra character voice the arguments against
morality. [f]
Richard Strauss’s Opus 30, inspired by Nietzsche’s book, is also called Also sprach Zarathustra.
Its opening theme, which corresponds to the book’s prologue, was used to score the opening
sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Zoroaster was mentioned by the nineteenth-century poet William Butler Yeats. His wife and he
[21][page # needed]
were said to have claimed to have contacted Zoroaster through “automatic writing.”
The 2005 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy places Zoroaster first in a chronology of
philosophers.
[22][page # needed]
Zoroaster is ranked #93 on Michael H. Hart’s list of the most influential figures in history. [23]
In 1997, the British gothic rock band Tammuz released a song named ‘Zarathustra’ on their album
Yezidi. The track features an Avestan language verse from the Gathas. The name ‘Zarathustra’