Written by On the Zoroastrian Origin of the Holy Spirit, and a Request That Has Waited 1,800 Years
Your Holiness,
We write to you not as adversaries but as elders of the oldest monotheistic faith on earth — the faith that gave your tradition several of its most sacred concepts, and has waited nearly two millennia for that contribution to be acknowledged.
We are Zoroastrians. Our prophet, Zarathustra, preached the worship of one God — Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord — at least a thousand years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Our scriptures, the Gathas, are among the oldest liturgical texts still in active ritual use anywhere in the world.
We are writing to you because of a single sentence written by one of your own Church Fathers.
Origen of Alexandria, writing in the third century of the Common Era — one of the most brilliant theologians in the history of Christianity, a man whose work shaped the intellectual architecture of the Church for centuries — wrote the following:
“God created Logos or the Son. His relation to the Father is the same as that which exists between Ahura Mazda and Spenta Mainyu.”
Origen did not hide the source. He named it. He identified the relationship between the Christian Father and Son as equivalent — his word, not ours — to the relationship between the Zoroastrian supreme God and His Holy Spirit.
Your Holiness, the term “Holy Spirit” is a direct translation of the Avestan “Spenta Mainyu.” Spenta means “holy” or “bountiful.” Mainyu means “spirit.” When the Avesta was first translated into European languages, scholars rendered Spenta Mainyu as “the Holy Spirit” — not to create a parallel with Christianity but because that is what the words mean.
The parallel was already there. Built into the language. Documented by your own theologians. And it has been quietly set aside for 1,800 years.
What We Are Documenting
We are not speculating. We are presenting what your own scholars have acknowledged:
Mary Boyce, the most authoritative Western scholar of Zoroastrianism in the twentieth century, described Spenta Mainyu as “both his active agent and yet one with him, indivisible and yet distinct.” Those words — indivisible and yet distinct — are the language of the Nicene Creed. They describe the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. Boyce was describing a Zoroastrian concept that predates the Council of Nicaea by over a thousand years.
R.C. Zaehner, Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford, wrote that the Zoroastrian doctrine of the Amesha Spentas can be “likened to the Christian trinity: Man prays to God through Christ just as God creates through the same Christ… So too in Zoroastrianism, through the Good Mind God communes with man, and through the Holy Spirit he creates.”
The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) states: “Most scholars, Jewish as well as non-Jewish, are of the opinion that Judaism was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism in views relating to angelology and demonology, and probably also in the doctrine of the resurrection, as well as in eschatological ideas in general.”
Lovern and Beckmann, in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Academic Perspectives, conclude that there is “ample evidence to show not only an influence of Zoroastrian knowledge on Christianity but also a colonization of that knowledge by Christianity” accompanied by “a continued postcolonial attitude of denial in the academy.”
The evidence is not fringe. It is mainstream. It is documented by Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and secular scholars. It is in your libraries. It has simply never been spoken from your pulpits.
The Specific Inheritance
Your Holiness, the following concepts — each central to Catholic doctrine — have documented Zoroastrian precedents:
The Holy Spirit — Spenta Mainyu, the active creative emanation of Ahura Mazda, through whom God creates and through whom God is immanent in humanity.
Heaven and Hell — The four heavens and four hells of Zoroastrian eschatology, with the Chinvat Bridge as the crossing point and individual judgment immediately after death.
The Devil — Angra Mainyu, the Destructive Spirit who chose evil and opposes the supreme God. The first theological formulation of a cosmic adversary.
Resurrection of the dead — Bodily resurrection at the end of time, documented in the Gathas and elaborated in the Bundahishn, a millennium before it appeared in Jewish or Christian texts.
The Last Judgment — Both individual judgment and a universal final judgment at the end of history.
Angels and archangels — The Amesha Spentas and Yazatas, named divine beings with specific functions and hierarchies.
Purgatory — Hamistakan, the intermediate state for souls whose good and evil deeds are exactly balanced. The original purgatory.
The Messiah — The Saoshyant, a future savior born of a virgin who will lead the final renovation of the world.
The Magi — The Wise Men who came to Bethlehem in the Gospel of Matthew were Zoroastrian priests. Magus is the Greek form of the Zoroastrian priestly title. They came because they recognized a Zoroastrian prophecy — the star heralding the Saoshyant. They are in your Nativity scenes. They are in your Christmas carols. They are Zoroastrian.
We are not claiming that Christianity is “merely” borrowed Zoroastrianism. Two thousand years of theological development, devotion, martyrdom, and lived faith have made Christianity what it is. We honor the depth of the Christian tradition.
But depth does not erase origin. And origin deserves acknowledgment.
What We Are Asking
We are not asking for money, reparations, or apology.
We are asking for three things:
First: A public acknowledgment — in a papal address, an encyclical, or a formal statement — that Zoroastrianism is the oldest monotheistic tradition and that several core Christian concepts have documented Zoroastrian precedents. Not as a concession but as a statement of historical truth. The Church has acknowledged its debt to Greek philosophy. It has acknowledged its Jewish roots. It has never acknowledged its Zoroastrian roots.
Second: The inclusion of Zoroastrianism in interfaith dialogue. The Vatican maintains active dialogue with Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. It does not maintain formal dialogue with Zoroastrianism — the very tradition from which it inherited the Holy Spirit, resurrection, the Devil, heaven, hell, angels, and the Messiah. We ask to be included at the table we helped set.
Third: The teaching of this history in Catholic seminaries and educational institutions. Future priests should know that when they invoke the Holy Spirit, they are invoking a concept first articulated in the Gathas of Zarathustra. This is not a threat to faith. It is an enrichment of it.
Why Now
Your Holiness, there are between 120,000 and 150,000 Zoroastrians left on earth.
We have survived Alexander’s burning of the Avesta. We have survived the Arab conquest that destroyed our temples and forced millions to convert. We have survived a thousand years of pressure, persecution, and erasure.
We are still here.
We tend the sacred fire. We pray five times daily. We wear the sudreh and kushti. We celebrate Nowruz, the world’s oldest New Year, on the spring equinox. We teach our children Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta — Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.
And every Sunday, when 2.6 billion Christians recite the Nicene Creed and profess belief in the Holy Spirit — they are, whether they know it or not, professing a Zoroastrian idea.
We ask only that you say so.
Respectfully, with the fire of Asha,
eFireTemple.com On behalf of the Zoroastrian faithful — the keepers of the oldest flame
Sources & References
- Wikisource — Dhalla, History of Zoroastrianism, Ch. XX — Origen: “His relation to the Father is the same as that which exists between Ahura Mazda and Spenta Mainyu”
- Encyclopaedia Iranica — “Amǝša Spǝnta” (Mary Boyce) — “indivisible and yet distinct”
- New World Encyclopedia — “Amesha Spenta” — R.C. Zaehner Trinity parallel
- Lovern & Beckmann — “Zoroastrianism and Christianity” — “colonization of Zoroastrian knowledge”
- Jewish Encyclopedia — “Zoroastrianism” — “Most scholars… strongly influenced”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — “Spenta Mainyu”
- Center for the Study of Global Christianity — 2.6 billion Christians
- eFireTemple.com — “The Hidden Thread” series
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