Plato taught that the sensual objects that constitute the world were but the imperfect copies or reproductions of the quasi-personified Ideas that constituted true reality. These transcendental Ideas are the contents of the creative mind of God. This supreme Deity creates the World-Soul, whom we have equated with Spenta Mainyu in previous pages. The Avestan text says the Fravashis stood ready for help, when Spenta Mainyu created the world with Angra Mainyu.[1] It is expressly said in a passage that the souls of the dead that have become the Fravashis of the righteous owe their origin to Spenta Mainyu and to Best Mind.[2] Plato likewise says that the World-Soul who bears the images of the Ideas, fashioned the World-Body or the creatures after the pattern of the Ideas.
Aristotle postulated a second independent principle in addition to the soul which moved the body and carried on rational activity. This is the spirit which constitutes the real essence of the individual. Man is thus divided into body, soul, and spirit.
Philo distinguishes between the soul and the pneuma. This pneuma, which the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics of his time call Noûs, is the image of the deity and constitutes the true nature of man. The transcendent God reveals himself through the divine Ideas which are his thoughts and will, in the form of creative forces. As the Fravashis are not classed among the Yazatas, so these divine Ideas, says Philo, are not angels, but are personified abstract ideas. They manifest the energy of God. The Fravashis, as we shall see anon, help Ahura Mazda in the maintenance of the world, so these Ideas administer the work of God. They impart reality to the creation. Order in the creation is preserved through them. The Fravashis are not all of equal grade,[3] so these Ideas also are not of equal rank. The Fravashi represents Ahura Mazda in man, so does the rational part of the soul stand for the type of the Logos. Plutarch speaks of two principles in man, the spirit and the soul. The spirit, he says, is immortal, whereas the soul is not. In the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom, an emanation of God, selects from the divine Ideas those that are fit for actualization and creates them.
