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Sacred Correspondences
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Making the World Wonderful Again

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Making the World Wonderful Again

Zoroastrian time runs toward an end, and that end is frashokereti, literally the "making wonderful", the final renovation in which the battle between good and evil is decided for ever in favour of Ahura Mazda. The later texts fill in the scene. The dead are raised; a universal judgement follows in which a flood of molten metal sweeps over all, searing the wicked yet felt by the righteous as warm milk, and purifying everyone so that none is finally lost. Angra Mainyu and death itself are destroyed, and the whole creation is remade deathless, perfect and unchanging.

A saviour, the Saoshyant, born miraculously from the seed of Zarathustra, is awaited as the one who brings this about. Two things make the doctrine important beyond Zoroastrianism. It gives the tradition a linear rather than cyclical view of history, moving toward a good conclusion. And its features, bodily resurrection, a last judgement, a final purgation and renewal, are widely held to have shaped the eschatologies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

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