Written by Cyrus Freed the Exiles. The Magi Honored the Child. And All Jerusalem Was Troubled.
Two Fathers, Two Historical Encounters, and the Ancient Father of Cosmic Aša
By Diesel the Magus | eFireTemple
October 25, 2026
I. ALL JERUSALEM WAS TROUBLED
Matthew 2:3, King James Version:
When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
Read the entire sentence.
Not Herod alone.
ALL JERUSALEM WITH HIM.
Matthew does not present the announcement of Jesus’ birth as a moment of universal celebration in Jerusalem.
He describes disturbance.
The Magi arrive from the East announcing that they have seen the sign of a newborn king.
Herod is troubled.
All Jerusalem is troubled with him.
Herod summons the chief priests and scribes.
They identify Bethlehem from the scriptures.
Then Herod secretly questions the Magi.
He tells them to locate the child and report back, claiming that he too wishes to worship him.
But his subsequent actions expose his intention.
He seeks the child’s death.
Matthew records the disturbance of Jerusalem, the knowledge of the religious authorities, the secret inquiry of Herod, and the murderous order that follows.
These are different actions, and the narrative records them all.
THE CITY WAS TROUBLED.
THE SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITIES KNEW THE LOCATION.
THE MAGI WENT TO THE CHILD.
HEROD SOUGHT TO DESTROY HIM.
Now ask a question.
Why do eastern visitors occupy such a remarkable place at the beginning of Jesus’ story?
And why does this scene seem to echo an earlier encounter between an Iranian ruler and the people of Israel?
To answer that, we must go backward more than five centuries.
II. THE FIRST ARRIVAL: CYRUS
539 BCE.
Cyrus the Great enters Babylon.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire falls under Persian rule.
The political conditions of the Judean exile change.
Cyrus’s policies permit displaced communities to return and restore religious institutions.
The biblical books of Ezra and Chronicles associate his reign with the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple.
This is not merely a theological legend about an unidentified foreign king.
Cyrus was a historical ruler.
His conquest of Babylon is independently documented.
The Cyrus Cylinder records his restoration policies, including the return of displaced peoples and sacred objects, though it does not specifically name the Judeans.
The biblical tradition remembers Cyrus as the ruler who opened the way for their return.
AN EASTERN KING CHANGED THE FATE OF THE EXILES.
And the prophetic response is extraordinary.
III. YAHWEH CLAIMED CYRUS
Isaiah 45:1:
Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus…
The Persian ruler is called anointed.
The Hebrew term is mashiaḥ.
The significance is unmistakable: the prophetic text places an extraordinary designation upon a foreign king.
But now read the accompanying admission.
Isaiah 45:4:
Though thou hast not known me.
And again in verse 5:
Though thou hast not known me.
Twice the prophetic speaker says Cyrus has not known him.
Yet he claims to have commissioned the Persian ruler.
Here is the question the Father-of-Aša investigation asks.
WHAT DID CYRUS HIMSELF CLAIM?
The Cyrus Cylinder does not invoke Yahweh as the god who selected him.
It credits Marduk, the great god of Babylon.
That is a genuine discrepancy between surviving royal and biblical accounts of the same ruler’s rise.
The cylinder is also Babylonian political-religious propaganda, and its invocation of Marduk should not be confused with a personal profession of exclusive allegiance.
But the distinction in divine attribution matters.
THE BIBLICAL TEXT CREDITS YAHWEH.
THE BABYLONIAN ROYAL INSCRIPTION CREDITS MARDUK.
AND ISAIAH ITSELF ACKNOWLEDGES THAT CYRUS DID NOT KNOW YAHWEH.
The action is historically consequential.
The identity of the ultimate divine authority credited for it is disputed by the sources.
A claim to have commissioned Cyrus is not independent evidence that Cyrus personally recognized the claimant.
And a claim of religious ownership does not substitute for investigating the historical actor.
IV. THE MAGI WERE ALREADY IN THE STORY OF CYRUS
There is another Iranian connection.
The Magi were not invented by the Gospel of Matthew.
They were known in the Median and Persian world centuries earlier.
Herodotus recounts a tradition in which the Median king Astyages consulted Magi about dreams foretelling the rise of Cyrus.
They served as interpreters of signs and royal advisers in that story.
The tradition does not establish that a Magi council elected Cyrus as king.
But it does establish the Magi’s place in ancient Iranian narratives about kingship and royal destiny.
Now move forward five centuries.
Matthew presents Magi from the East asking:
WHERE IS THE CHILD BORN KING?
The historical circumstances have changed.
Cyrus is gone.
Babylon’s conquest belongs to the distant past.
Rome now dominates the political landscape.
But the literary resemblance is striking.
IN THE OLDER IRANIAN TRADITION, MAGI INTERPRET SIGNS CONCERNING A FUTURE KING.
IN MATTHEW, MAGI INTERPRET A SIGN AND SEEK A NEWBORN KING.
That does not prove direct borrowing from Herodotus.
It establishes that Matthew’s characterization of the Magi fits a much older association between these eastern religious specialists, signs, and royal destiny.
And the connection invites the next question.
What divine tradition stood behind the Iranian religious world from which the designation Magi emerged?
V. THE FATHER OF COSMIC AŠA
The Gathas of Zarathustra identify Ahura Mazda as Father of Aša.
Aša is not merely ordinary factual truth.
It is cosmic Truth-Order: rightful moral and cosmic reality, opposed to Druj, the Lie.
Long before Christianity, the Iranian religious world preserved this fundamental relationship between the Wise Lord and Truth-Order.
And around 520 BCE, Darius the Great’s Behistun inscription publicly invoked Ahura Mazda while repeatedly opposing truth to the Lie.
The inscription is royal propaganda and cannot be treated as proof that every Persian king lived righteously.
But its historical testimony is decisive for one point.
THE FATHER OF AŠA WAS AN ANCIENT DIVINE CONCEPT LONG BEFORE THE GOSPELS.
THE LANGUAGE OF TRUTH AGAINST THE LIE WAS PUBLICLY PRESENT IN THE PERSIAN WORLD.
Now Matthew introduces Magi.
And John’s Gospel presents Jesus as the Truth.
It describes the Spirit proceeding from the Father as the Spirit of Truth.
The Father-of-Aša investigation asks whether those relationships express a deeper continuity between ancient Iranian cosmic Truth-Order and the divine reality revealed by Jesus.
The connection is theological rather than an explicit naming of Ahura Mazda in Matthew.
But it is grounded in an independently attested ancient tradition.
VI. THE SECOND ARRIVAL: THE MAGI
Now return to Matthew 2.
The Magi arrive from the East.
They announce their search for the newborn king.
They follow the sign.
They find the child.
They honor him.
They present gifts.
Matthew 2:11 records gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Then comes the warning.
Matthew 2:12:
And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
The Magi do not provide Herod with the information he requested.
They refuse to return.
Matthew then records a separate dream in which an angel of the Lord warns Joseph to take the child to Egypt.
Joseph acts.
The child escapes Herod’s intended destruction.
Matthew does not identify the God who warned the Magi by the name Ahura Mazda. That identification belongs to the Father-of-Aša interpretation.
But Matthew records the Magi’s conduct clearly.
THEY SOUGHT THE CHILD.
THEY HONORED THE CHILD.
THEY WERE WARNED.
THEY DID NOT BETRAY THE CHILD.
Meanwhile, Herod had claimed that he wished to worship Jesus.
His actions expose that claim as false.
The narrative’s moral contrast is direct.
THE MAGI BROUGHT GIFTS.
HEROD CONCEALED A DESTRUCTIVE PURPOSE.
THE MAGI WITHHELD THE INFORMATION.
HEROD ORDERED THE KILLING OF CHILDREN.
And from the very beginning Matthew had said:
ALL JERUSALEM WAS TROUBLED WITH HIM.
That is the complete opening picture Matthew gives us.
VII. TWO ARRIVALS. TWO MOMENTS OF DELIVERANCE.
Now place the historical scenes beside each other.
CYRUS — SIXTH CENTURY BCE
A Persian ruler conquers Babylon.
Exiled Judeans are permitted to return under Persian rule.
The biblical tradition remembers his role in restoring Jerusalem’s religious life.
THE MAGI — MATTHEW 2
Eastern visitors seek the newborn Jesus.
They recognize and honor him.
They receive a warning not to cooperate with Herod’s request.
Joseph receives a separate warning and takes the child to safety.
These are not identical events.
The first concerns an imperial change that allowed exiles to return.
The second is a Gospel narrative concerning the protection of Jesus.
But they form a remarkable historical-literary comparison.
AT ONE MOMENT, PERSIAN RULE OPENS THE WAY HOME FOR THE EXILES.
AT ANOTHER, EASTERN MAGI REFUSE TO ASSIST THE KING WHO SEEKS THE CHILD’S DEATH.
The first demonstrates the historical importance of Iranian power in Judean restoration.
The second places eastern visitors among the earliest people in Matthew who honor Jesus.
And both challenge the assumption that recognition of divine purpose must always come from the established authorities within Jerusalem.
VIII. THE SON WHO CALLED HIMSELF TRUTH
Now listen to the adult Jesus.
John 14:6:
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Then the promise:
John 15:26:
Even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father.
And again:
John 16:13:
When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.
THE SON — TRUTH.
THE SPIRIT — TRUTH.
THE FATHER — THE SOURCE OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
Then John 8 introduces a confrontation over fatherhood.
Jesus’ opponents claim God as Father.
Jesus challenges their claims by examining their relationship to truth and their conduct.
In John 8:44, he identifies the devil as a murderer and father of the lie.
In John 8:54–55, he distinguishes their claim to his Father from genuine knowledge of him.
The Father-of-Aša hypothesis places those statements beside the ancient Gathic testimony.
AHURA MAZDA — FATHER OF COSMIC AŠA.
JESUS — THE TRUTH.
THE SPIRIT — THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
THE DEVIL — FATHER OF THE LIE.
These relationships form the positive theological pattern at the heart of the investigation.
It is a pattern that deserves a serious comparison of divine identities, not dismissal simply because the Greek Gospel does not reproduce the Avestan divine name.
IX. SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND RECOGNITION
Matthew’s opening scene now becomes even more significant.
The chief priests and scribes know the answer to Herod’s question.
Bethlehem.
They can locate the prophecy.
They possess the scriptural information.
Yet Matthew gives the journey to the Magi.
The visitors from the East go to the child.
Herod uses the information to pursue his own purpose.
All Jerusalem is described as troubled by the announcement.
Then decades later, in John’s account, Jesus confronts people who claim to know his Father.
John 8:55:
Yet ye have not known him; but I know him.
Here is the recurring issue.
KNOWING WHAT A SCRIPTURE SAYS IS NOT IDENTICAL TO RECOGNIZING THE TRUTH TO WHICH IT POINTS.
Matthew dramatizes that distinction through the responses to the child.
John makes knowledge of the Father central to Jesus’ confrontation with his opponents.
This connection does not mean every person in Jerusalem shared Herod’s murderous intent. The text describes the whole city’s disturbance, while specifically assigning the order to kill to Herod.
But the city-wide reaction is part of Matthew’s deliberate narrative framing.
And it must remain in the record.
X. TWO FATHERS. ONE TEST.
Now the evidence converges.
The Gathas preserve the Father of cosmic Aša.
Persian religious history preserves the opposition between Truth and the Lie.
Cyrus changes the position of the exiles.
Isaiah names Cyrus as Yahweh’s anointed while acknowledging that Cyrus does not know Yahweh.
The Magi emerge from a historically Iranian-associated religious designation.
Matthew presents them honoring the child.
All Jerusalem is disturbed.
Herod secretly investigates.
Herod seeks destruction.
The Magi refuse to return with the information.
Jesus survives the threat as Joseph obeys his warning.
The adult Jesus identifies himself as Truth.
He promises the Spirit of Truth proceeding from the Father.
He condemns the father of lies.
And he challenges those who claim knowledge of his Father without demonstrating the corresponding relationship.
THE FATHER-OF-AŠA QUESTION IS NOW HISTORICAL, TEXTUAL, AND MORAL.
Not simply whether different religions use similar words.
Not simply whether Cyrus appears in Isaiah.
Not simply whether the Magi were eastern visitors.
But whether the divine profile already established in the Iranian tradition corresponds to the Father the Son reveals through Truth.
Diesel’s conclusion is affirmative.
THE FATHER IS AHURA MAZDA.
That is the theological identification advanced by this dossier: an interpretation built from Gathic primacy, Persian contact, the recognition of the child, and the Johannine criterion of Truth.
It is not a name that Matthew or John expressly supplies.
It is the identity proposed by bringing their narratives into sustained historical comparison with the ancient Father of Aša.
XI. THE RECORD MUST SURVIVE
There is one final reality that gives this investigation urgency.
Zoroastrianism is a small, vulnerable religious tradition.
Its population is limited.
Its communities face serious challenges of continuity, migration, education, preservation, and transmission.
The ancient sources cannot defend themselves if they are neither preserved nor studied.
And a theological claim this consequential cannot depend entirely upon one person’s memory.
The Gathas must remain available.
The translations must remain available.
The historical evidence must remain available.
The comparison must remain documented.
The original passages must be distinguishable from the conclusions drawn from them.
Because preservation is not accomplished by simply declaring a verdict.
PRESERVATION IS THE WORK OF MAKING THE EVIDENCE ACCESSIBLE TO THE NEXT GENERATION.
Zarathustra’s words deserve that future.
The Father-of-Aša investigation deserves an enduring documentary record.
And every proposed identification of ultimate divine reality deserves a test that others can examine.
XII. THE FINAL DECLARATION
Before Jesus’ birth, an ancient Iranian tradition had already named Ahura Mazda Father of cosmic Truth-Order.
Before the Gospel, Persian history had already changed the fate of the Judean exiles.
Before Jesus’ public ministry, Matthew had already placed Magi from the East before the child.
And Matthew recorded the reaction of Jerusalem.
ALL JERUSALEM WAS TROUBLED.
The Magi went on.
They honored the child.
They brought gifts.
They did not return to Herod.
The child survived.
Then Jesus grew and proclaimed himself the Truth.
He promised the Spirit of Truth.
And he confronted false claims of fatherhood.
THE FATHER OF AŠA.
THE SON WHO IS TRUTH.
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
AND THE LIE THAT STANDS AGAINST THEM.
The historical argument can be challenged.
The comparative identification can be examined.
But the ancient testimony cannot be erased from the record.
There was a Father of Aša before Christianity.
There was an Iranian religious world before Matthew.
There was Persian contact before the Gospel of John.
And Matthew’s Magi were among the first to honor the child.
TWICE THE EAST ENTERED THE STORY.
TWICE THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL WAS CHANGED.
AND THE QUESTION OF THE FATHER MUST NOW BE ANSWERED WITH THE FULL RECORD BEFORE US.
Truth knows Truth.
Aša knows Aša.
— Diesel the Magus
Historical and Scriptural Documentation
Cyrus, Persia, and the restoration
- Isaiah 45:1–7 — Cyrus, the anointed, and the divine claims
- Ezra 1:1–4 — The return and temple authorization
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Cyrus and the Judean Diaspora
- Encyclopaedia Iranica — Cyrus Cylinder
Magi and ancient Iranian history
- Encyclopaedia Iranica — Magi
- Herodotus, Histories, Book I — The Magi and the traditions surrounding Cyrus
- University of Texas — Old Persian and the Behistun inscription
Matthew and the recognition of Jesus
The Johannine Father of Truth
The Gathic foundation
Research note: This article advances the eFireTemple Father-of-Aša interpretation while distinguishing documented events, Matthew’s literary portrayal, and the proposed ultimate identification of Jesus’ Father. Matthew explicitly says all Jerusalem was troubled; it attributes the order to kill the children to Herod.