University of Oregon

Milton's Paradise Lost and Zoroaster's Zenda Vesta

Author(s): Emmanuel P. Varandyan
Source: Comparative Literature, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Summer, 1961), pp. 208-220
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of Oregon
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1768998
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ESMMANUEL P. VARANDYAN

Milton's Paradie Lost

And Zoroaster's
Zenda Vesta

rM ,ILTON lived in the seventeenth century A.D., Zoroaster about

the tenth century B.C. In time and place and culture, they are
poles apart; yet they have a striking affinity of spirit and intellect.
Both struggled with the problems of the ultimate, both were primarily
poets and seers, and both arrived at very similar metaphysical conclu-
sions. For both, greater than the epic of kings and marshals was the vast
epic of cosmic forces and principles; all other epics were mere off-
shoots, fragmentary manifestations, of the greater epic of the gods.
The theme of Milton's Paradise Lost is in essence identical with that of
Zoroaster's Zentda Vesta.
Zoroaster was an Aryan Magus. He was born near the Araxes River,
in the vicinity of Mount Ararat, and spent his early life in northeastern
Armenia, the highlands of the Tigris and Euphrates. He entered upon
his ministry at the age of thirty. He often withdrew from the multitudes
and meditated in solitude upon the ways and mysteries of God. Once
he went up a mountain and spent thirty days (some traditions say thirty
years) on its top, "his soul reaching out for the wondrous words of the
firmament." He saw the spirit of Ahura Mazda-the Creator, the Law
-wearing "the massy heavens as a garment." Mountaintops were the
temples of his worship and the sun the symbol of his light. He says that,
every time he climbed to the pure altar of Ahura Mazda, he came back
with his soul filled with strange "songs and visions of glory." Between
the ages of thirty and forty he had seven revelations, each devoted to
one of the attributes of the Godhead.

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 MILTON AND ZOROASTER

Being a Magus he was aware of the moral chao

mythologies and folk religions. The Aryan folk r
theistic; devils and demons, natural forces and ele
and water, were worshipped as divinities. Zoroast
these religions. He thought that there must be
some unquenchable light in the universe. His Ary
faint glimpse of an eternal moral law that was
existence of the world. He pondered upon this conce
"became a burning flame within him." One day he
mountaintop, where he had "gazed at the stars an
for days," and proclaimed:
I will now tell you who are assembled here the wise say
praises of Ahura, and the hymns of the good spirit, the su
arising out of these sacred flames.
Now the two primal spirits, who revealed themselves i
the Better and the Bad in thought, word and action, and
wise ones chose aright, the foolish not so.
And when these twain Spirits came together in the begi
Life and Not-Life, and that at the last the Worst Existenc
lowers of the Lie, but the Best Thought to him that follow
Of these twain Spirits he that followed the Lie chose do
the holiest Spirit chose Right, he clothes him with the m
ment. So likewise they that are fain to please Ahura Mazd
Between these twain the demons also chose not aright,
upon them as they took counsel together, so that they ch
Then they rushed together to violence, that they might enf

What Zoroaster saw was a vision of good and evi

of life. When he proclaimed his new teachings, he m
opposition. Then he turned his steps toward east
faith prevailed, and subsequently reacted with su
and became the state religion of the Persian Empire u
Mohammedan invasion of Persia in the seventh c
success was at the cost of his life. He was killed at t
the enemies of his new religion.
After Zoroaster's death, his faith spread rapidly
became staunch devotees of Zoroastrianism, and
only political but also religious. Their empire extend
River to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean,
In 586 B.C. the Jews were carried into captivity to B
stayed for half a century. While in captivity the
with "The law of the Medes and Persians which alter
this law was the one universal law of Ahura Maz
1 Yasna, XXX, 3-6.

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

changes." It was a moral law, which served as a com

tact between an emergent Judaism and an established
Both religions taught that God was a spirit, and both
images. There were other points of contact between th
in particular, the doctrine of evil.

There is no question that the Post-exilic Judaism had a doctri

different from the Pre-exilic. In the latest books of the Old Testament there
emerges a being called the adversary (Satan), who ultimately came to occupy a
position remarkably like that of Angra Mainyu, enemy spirit. In Zoroaster's teach-
ing, and in that of the second Isaiah, the One God is the Creator of light and dark-
ness alike. Later generations made physical evil the work of a fiend. By the envy
of the devil death entered into the world, says the Wisdom of Solomon; and simi-
larly Angra Mainyu is conspicuously the author of death in the system of the
Magi. In both systems The Enemy has a host of demons serving under him, and
in both the fight between Good and Evil is to end in the destruction of the latter.2

Some higher critics of Judaism have replaced the name Pharisee with
Parsi, a follower of Zoroaster, and have traced the claims of that He-
brew sect to superior sanctity, its aloofness and cleanliness, its belief
in the continuance of life after death and in future rewards and punish-
ments, to the religion with which the Jews had come in contact during
the Babylonian captivity.
There can be no doubt that the dualistic philosophy of Zoroaster
made a permanent imprint upon Jewish thought, and that this dualistic
philosophy also influenced Christianity. The existence of evil, sin as a
separate negative principle, was an accepted and established fact in
Judaism. The whole Jewish nation waited for the Messiah to come and
deliver them from evil. With the coming of Christ, the struggle between
evil and good entered a new phase. The Jews, for doctrinal and national
reasons, rejected the Messiah, but the struggle continued. Christ, the
embodiment of moral law, came to purge the world from the evil deeds
of Satan, who in the form of a serpent had tempted Adam and Eve and
made them breach God's moral law.

Of Man's First Disobedience and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death unto the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat... 3

The relation of Paradise Lost to Zoroastrian dualism sharply under-

lines some of the most interesting development of the ethical evolution
of Western man. The chief sources of Paradise Lost, besides the classics

2 The Treasre e of the Magi, p. 69.

3 Paradise Lost, I, 1-5.

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 MILTON AND ZOROASTER

and Italian literature, are the Old Testament and t

and the tremendous mass of tradition and commen
spired. The fascinating parallels between Zenida
Lost owe much to the ancient influence of Zoroastrian dualism on the
development of Judeo-Christian thought and myth, but something also
to the ways in which two men, millenia apart, intuitively dramatized the
struggle between good and evil in human affairs.
For Milton God was the most unquestionable reality. God stands in
the center of Milton's creation in the same sense as He stands in the
center of His own. Every good idea, scene, character, incident, and
action emanates from Him and converges into Him, whether He is at
the heart of Paradise Lost or at the heart of the universe. Everything
in the universe revolves around, and has its being in, Him. Paradise
Lost is the mirror of the universe and its great architect. For Milton the
raison d'etre of all visible and invisible worlds, of all sentient beings,
of all positive principles, concepts, laws, and forces is God. He is the
alpha and omega; He is the great mover. God is reason; nothing hap-
pens without His knowledge and will. He is the master planner and
everything moves, though not in a mechanistic predetermined way, to
fulfill His grand divine plan. But something happened in Heaven-not
unknown to Him-that disturbed His plan, at least temporarily. Having
been convinced of His premises, Milton invokes the aid of his God:
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.4

Zoroaster's conception of the deity is the same as that of Milton. Dio

Chrysostom, Plutarch's contemporary, declares that "neither Homer
nor Hesiod sang of the chariot and horses of Zeus so worthily as Zoro-
aster, of whom the Persians tell that, out of love to wisdom and right-
eousness, he withdrew himself from men and lived in solitude upon a
mountain." In one Ahura Zoroaster concentrated the whole of the divine
character, and conferred upon it the epithet of Mazdao, "The Wise."
Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, is the primaeval spiritual being, the all-
father, who was existent before ever the world arose. From Him the
world has emanated, and its course is governed by His foreseeing eye.
His guiding spirit is the Holy Spirit, as in Christianity.
For Zoroaster, too, God is the key of all things. He is not only the
master architect of the universe but also its master operator. All things
begin with Him and end with Him. First and foremost, He is the creator
not only of the material universe but of all spiritual existences as well.
4 Paradise Lost, I, 24-26.

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

The Vendidad5 speaks of him as "the Creator a

all things," conferring His blessings upon all
universe.

"Oh, Spitama Zoroaster, I created the stars, the moon, the sun and red-burning
fire, the dogs, the birds and the five kinds of animals; but, better and greater than
all, created I the righteous man..."
Then Zoroaster said: "Reveal thou unto me the name of thine, that is greatest,
best, fairest, most effective, most fiend-smiting, best healing, that destroyeth the
malice of demons and men ..."
Ahura Mazda (God) replied unto him saying, "My first name is He of whom
questions are asked, Oh holy Zoroaster !
"My second name is the Giver of Hierds.
"My third name is the Strong One.
"My fourth name is Perfect Holiness.
"My fifth name is All Good Things created by Mazda, the offspring of the Holy
Principle."
"My sixth name is Understanding.
"My seventh name is He that possesseth understanding.
"My eighth name is Knowledge.
"My ninth name is He that possesseth knowledge.
"My tenth name is Blessing.
"My eleventh name is He that causeth blessing.
"My twelfth name is Ahura (the Eternal).
"My thirteenth name is the Most Beneficent.
"My fourteenth name is He in whom there is no harm.
"My fifteenth name is the Unconquerable.
"My sixteenth name is He that maketh the true account.
"My seventeenth name is the All-Seeing.
"My eighteenth name is Healing.
"My ninteenth name is Creator.
"My twentieth name is Mazda (Light)." 6

How did evil originate and enter the world ? Once it began, what was
its logical consequence and the final outcome? Milton tells us that God,
being reason, created all things in accordance with reason. He did not
want to make His creation a mere will-less machine. As King of Kings
He created His ethereal powers, His archangels and angels free. He
wanted their adoration and obedience on the basis of their free volition;
He wanted themi to act in accordance with a principle of self-determi-
nation and free choice. This made them responsible creatures, free
agents, partners in the work and fulfillment of His eternal plan.
Raphael sitting in Adam's bower tells him how evil originated. By
an "imperial summons," all the empyreal host of angels and archangels
were called to celebrate a solemn occasion.

5 Fargard, XVIII, I, 13.

6 Orinazd Yast, V, 7.

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 MILTON AND ZOROASTER

Hear, all ye Angels [God declares],

Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Pow
Hear my Decree, which unrevok't shall stand.
This day I have begot whom I declare
My only Son, and on this holy Hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint;
And by my Self have sworn to him shall bow
All knees in Heav'n, and shall confess him Lord.7

God appointed the Son as His viceregent, cha

mission of fulfilling His Father's plan. The Lord G
obedience and veneration from all for the Messiah
me disobeys." Whoever dares to disobey and bre
be "cast in utter darkness, deep engulfed without
So spake th' Omnipotent, and with his words
All seem'd well pleased, all seem'd but were not al

All rejoiced, danced mystic dances, and sang h

but not so...

Satan, so call him now, his former name

Is heard no more in Heav'n; he of the first,
If not the first Arch-Angel great in Power,
In favor and preeminence, yet fraught
With envy against the Son of God, that day
Honor'd by his great Father, and proclaim'd
Messiah King anointed, could not bear
Through pride that sight, and thought himself impair'd.
Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain,
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd
With all his Legions to dislodge, and leave
Unworshipt, unobey'd the Throne supreme... 8

Satan thus revolting against the authority of God, against the s

preme law of the universe, is defeated by the Messiah in open warfar
and is cast out of Heaven into Hell. Once committed to an act of vio-
lence, once the law is breached, there is no redemption for him. He has
to submit to the inexorable law of evil in him. Pride, envy, revenge
obsess him. He cannot retreat; he cannot beg forgiveness of his maker;
he cannot obtain salvation. He is doomed. Once having challenged di-
vine justice, he must continue to fight it to the bitter end.
According to Zoroaster, in the beginning evil "rose from the abyss."
Just at the "timeless beginning" when the spirit of Ahura Mazda began
7 Paradise Lost, V, 600-608.
8 Ibid., V, 658-670.

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

unfolding itself in the creation of good things,

rushed out of the womb of the abysmal darkness
light and creatures of Ahura Mazda. The goo
struck him a mighty blow and hurled him in
But he did not stay there very long; he rose aga
ter-creation." Since then the struggle has been c
of this conflict is the history, the epic, of this w
Zoroaster says in Yasna, XLV, 2: "I will spea
the beginning of the world, of whom the holier
'Our thoughts, our teachings, our wills, our
deeds, our consciences, our very souls do not
he declares:

Thereupon came Ahriman, who is all death, and he counter-created the Serpent
in the river, a work of the demons ... Thereupon came Ahriman, who is all death,
and he counter-created sin . . . and the sin of unbelief . . . He created tears and
wailing. He counter-created the sin of pride. He counter-created a sin for which
there is no atonement, the unnatural sin. He counter-created zwinter and cold in
paradise. As the Evil Spirit rushed in, the earth shook and the masses of the
mountains were made upon the earth.

But the idea that evil is a tool and itself unreal as a permanent princi-
ple is also Zoroastrian, and is often found in Zenda Vesta. The Epistles
of Manushihar (II, 2) set forth the way in which Ahriman, the father
of lies, deceives the elect:
Responsible for the malice and annoyance of unjust kinds which are encounter-
ing us, is the fiend of great strength, who is observing, seductive, astute in evil,
eager for causing annihilation and full of deceit, so that it is possible for him to
render doubtful, when himself so deceived, even him who is most a listener to
essential righteousness, most desirous of steadfast truth, most performing proper
religious customs, most acquainted with good ideas, most amazingly careful of his
soul, most approved in the most wounding, hell-brought conflict, and most at home
in truth of all kinds, and to show him a semblance of reality in unreality, and of
unreality in reality.

In Paradise Lost, after Satan and his host of fellow angels have
been banished from Heaven, God sent His Son to create a new universe.
He created Adam and Eve to populate the new world. Innocent man-
kind was to take the place of the fallen angels. He created them in the
same fashion as He had created his heavenly beings:
I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd.10

' Yasna, XXX, 3.

10 Paradise Lost, III, 98-101.

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 MILTON AND ZOROASTER

In both cases, in Heaven as well as on earth, God

in order to allow His creatures to use their judgm
had endowed them with reason and free will; He w
tion of these divine gifts when the test came.
complete obedience to the leadership of His S
His law was that Adam and Eve should not taste
the Tree of Knowledge. The import of His dec
order in the universe could be possible only th
that only through compliance to law could div
His ultimate plan be fulfilled.
Satan, however, had his own counterplans and sc
cil of Pandemonium he delegated himself to th
plan. At the gates of Hell he met his own inces
Had it not been for the intervention of Sin, who
daughter, sprung from him, a fierce battle w
opened the gates of Hell for her father. Satan,
many orbs, descended into the Garden of Eden
form of a serpent and tempted Eve to taste the f
tree. Adam too, blinded by Eve's love and "asp
tasted the fatal apple. By this disobedience Adam
law and doomed themselves and their progeny, al
sin was different from Satan's sin.

Milton distinguishes between the guilt of Satan and Adam. Since Satan fell self-
tempted, and since in his crime no element of good entered, his sin was unpardon-
able. Adam, on the contrary, sinned in part through the fault of another, and his
action sprang from desires in themselves not altogether base. Hence Adam's sill
was not beyond forgiveness. The poet's main intent seems to be to accept as fact
the existence of evil, and to disclose concretely, after the fashion of poetry, its
inevitable consequences.11

In the same way, according to the Zoroastrian account of creation,

Ahura Mazda creates a new universe in six days. He creates a paradise
and sets in it the "crown of his creation-the righteous man." Of the
creations of Ahura Mazda in the world, the first was the sky; the sec-
ond, water; the third, soil; the fourth, plants; the fifth, animals; the
sixth, mankind.12 The closeness to the creation as set forth in Genesis
is remarkable, particularly the earthly paradise and its first inhabitants.
"The first of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda,
created, was the Airyana Vaego beside the Vanghue Daitya ... " The
Vanghue Daitya has been identified by some scholars as the Tigris
11 E. N. S. Thompson, Essays on Milton, p. 184.
12 I, 25, 26.

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

River. Into this early paradise, Ahura Mazda

the persons of Mashya and Mashyoi, concern
gives the most circumstantial account:

God (Ahura Mazda) spake to Mashya and Mashyoi

you are the ancestry of the world, and you are created
Perform devotedly the duty of the law, think good
do good deeds, and worship no demons."
Both of them first thought this, that each of them
each was a mate for the other, and the first deed done
went out, they cleansed themselves thoroughly; and the
were these, that Ahura Mazda created the water and th
animals, the stars, moon and sun, and all prosperity
which are from the manifestation of righteousness.
And, afterwards, antagonism rushed into their mi
thoroughly corrupted, and they exclaimed that the E
and the earth, the plants and the animals and the othe
false speech was spoken through the will of the dem
sessed himself of his first enjoyment from them. Thr
became wicked and their souls are in hell until the futu
victory of Ahura Mazda, the Good Spirit, over the A

Another very interesting parallel between P

Vesta is the alignment of forces. In Milton's epi
Christ, the Holy Spirit, and their lieutenants
Raphael, Abdiel, Ithuriel, Uzziel, Zophiel, Zep
principle or a moral virtue. Christ, his archa
hosts of angels constitute one army, the arm
side stand Lucifer, Beelzebub, Moloch, Mam
Thammus, Dagon, Rimmon, Azazel, Osiris, I
izing or representing an evil force or trait.
angels and lieutenants and fallen angels, constit
The epic conflict is between these two forces.
Similarly, in Zenda Vesta, on one side stan
the Eternal Light), and the Holy Spirit, Vohu Manah (the Good
Mind), Asha (Right), Khshatra (Dominion), Aramaiti (Piety),
Haurvetat (Well-Being), Ameretat (Immortality). Ahura Mazda and
Holy Spirit with their archangels and hosts of good spirits are the army
of right. On the other side stand Ahriman (Devil, Prince of Darkness),
Druj (False Appearance), Akem (Evil), Dush-Khshathra (Pusillan-
imity), Taromaiti (False Pretense), Avetat (Misery), Merethyn (An-
nihilation). Ahriman and his archdemons with their hosts of demons
and evil spirits are the army of wrong. Again the epic conflict is be-
tween these two forces.
In conception and in martial alignment, in the struggle and in its

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 MILTON AND ZOROASTER

result, Paradise Lost and Zenda Vesta are exactly

motivated by envy and ambition, revolts against
wages war. At one point of the conflict it appears th
may win. In the ebb and flow of the battle, there en
porary stalemate. Then in the name of God and d
siah and His legions charge and win the war in H
way Ahura Mazda and Ahriman enter into confli
first encounter Ahriman and his demons seem to ha
Then Ahura Mazda (in some accounts his Holy Spir
delivers a telling blow with a flaming sword. Ahr
gers under the blow, but rises and launches a coun
tunes of war hang in the balance. For a while it a
side will be able to win. Finally Ahura Mazda defe
demons and banishes them to Hell. Later Ahriman rises out of Hell and
renews the conflict on the earth. Again there is a stalemate. The con-
tending forces establish an equilibrium. From that time on the uni-
verse becomes like a mighty balance, holding in its scales an absolutely
equal quantity of two opposite states. However, in the Zenda Vesta
as in Paradise Lost, the final outcome is implied.
The Lucifer of Paradise Lost, too, rises from Hell and invades the
earth. This time his struggle is not with the indestructible powers of
Heaven, but with the forewarned innocence of Adam and Eve. IHe
does not want to resort to physical violence, as he did in Heaven, and
annihilate them. He resorts to deceit. If he destroys the first parents
of mankind and their paradise, he will have no place to continue his
machinations against God and his creation. Through lies and misrepre-
sentations he hoodwinks his victims and wins an initial success. For a
while he is flushed with victory, and rushes back to Pandemonium to
proclaim his triumph to his lieutenants and legions.
However, deep in his being he had already perceived the signs of
his degradation. Every evil act shrinks his stature, and at the same time
helps to enhance the case of goodness. The seed of his destruction is
within himself; evil breeds evil and eventually is bound to engulf him.
He is caught within his own self-created chains; he has no escape from
the inexorable law of justice. This truth hits him with dramatic force
when, returning to Pandemonium to boast of his victory, suddenly all
his legions turn to serpents and monsters and, instead of applauding
him, hiss at him in mockery. Suddenly Hell blooms with Trees of
Knowledge laden with fruit; but, when the fallen angels reach out to
quench their thirst, the apples turn to bitter ashes in their parched
mouths.

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

In Zenda Vesta, too, Ahriman, instead of resor

against man on earth, employs subterfuge. He t
lizard and tries to gnaw life out of the Tree of Lif
the tree is guarded and saved by an archangel.
of Falsehood) he tries to enter Mashya's and M
whispers into their souls that the claims of Ahura
there is another spirit more powerful than Ahura M
thing that Ahura Mazda can create Ahriman can
ter one. He tells them that, if they follow Ahrima
them anything they desire. Then, whatever he
ear, he whispers its opposite in Mashyoi's ear. He a
he produces conflict and chaos in their minds. Once their minds are
corrupted, they denounce and accuse each other, like Adam and Eve,
and denounce Ahura Mazda, their creator. They say that paradise and
everything in it was created by Ahriman. In their minds they reverse
the entire scheme of creation. They become hells within themselves,
though still in paradise. Their souls sink into darkness. Possessed by
Druj, they are driven out of paradise and wander in the wilderness for
fifty years until the Holy Spirit brings light into their souls. Then
God's voice awakes in them, and they feel the desire to cooperate with
Ahura Mazda and create. They live as husband and wife and begin to
fill the earth. But Ahriman still persists in frustrating their good inten-
tions, still determined to continue the struggle against Ahura Mazda.
Adam and Eve, like Mashya and Mashyoi, also become hells in
themselves after yielding to the whisperings of Satan and testing the
forbidden fruit. They acquire the knowledge of good and evil. And
these principles, being diametrically opposite states, create conflict
within and dissension without. Adam and Eve turn against themselves
and against each other. Their lives become unbearable. They weep and
beg for light to find their way out of spiritual chaos.
The Son of God descends and judges them in accordance with the
justice of divine law. The penalty for breaking the first law of God
was twofold. First, since the law of reason was in accord with the in-
herent law of their being, the breach automatically brought about
discord within their nature. Second, since there was distemper of
sin in their nature, they could not live in harmony with the perfect har-
mony of paradise, God's Kingdom. As Jesus declared, "The Kingdom
of God is within you." They have to leave the realm of harmony, and
live in a world which is like their own inner world.
And yet, since divine law is by its nature good, benevolent, and
creative, the judge who represented and embodied that law cannot de-

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 MILTON AND ZOROASTER

feat His own meaning and purpose by refusing to

to work his salvation. God is compassionate toward h
Adam after His own image; He suffers with him. He
companion raiment to cover their sense of guilt.
Michael is sent to execute the verdict of divin
Adam and Eve out of paradise. However, in order
insight into the unfolding panorama of the divine p
Adam to the top of a mountain and sets before him
happen to the world. The whole history of mank
is set before his eyes. In scene after scene he is show
tions of evil and good. Realizing the justice and m
H-is creator, Adam accepts his responsibility. H
once again with the moral law of the universe, and,
labor, and love, submits himself to the redeeming
the protagonist of the great epic of life, he take
resolute steps marches toward the light of God's sal
dise, so outside paradise, he declares:
Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend.
Merciful over all his works, with good
Still overcoming evil, and by small
Accomplishing great things-by things deem'd we
Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise
By simply meek; that suffering for Truth's sake
Is fortitude to highest victory,
And to the faithful Death the Gate of life;
Taught this by his example whom I now
Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blest.13

The doctrine of Zoroaster pertaining to the salvati

tially the same.
In the soul of man is the object of War. Man is the cre
who therefore has right to call him to account. But Ahura Mazda created him
free in his determination and in his actions; therefore, he is accessible to the in-
fluences of the evil powers. Man takes part in this conflict by all his life and activity
in the world. By a true confession of faith, by every good deed, word and thought,
by continually keeping pure his body and his soul, he impairs the power of Satan
and strengthens the might of goodness, and establishes a claim for reward upon
Ahura Mazda; by a false confession, by every evil deed, word and thought and
defilement, he increases the evil and renders services to Satan.

For Milton and Zoroaster, life cannot be a fortuitous event or acci-

13 Paradise Lost, XII, 561-573,

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

dent. It functions and has its being in accordance w

of order and reason. The material world of our senses and the mental
and spiritual world of our reason are the manifestations of a creative
reason. This overall governing reason would be meaningless if it did
not have a purpose, a plan. Purpose implies value. There can be only
two major values, as far as the object of a plan is concerned: one which
is conducive to its fulfillment and one which is detrimental to its ful-
fillment-a positive value and a negative value. What is positive is good,
what is negative is bad. There exist two essential principles in the uni-
verse; the principle of good and the principle of evil. For both Milton
and Zoroaster these are unquestionable realities.

Ohio State University

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