and this rule applies to wicked men in general as well as to the noxious creatures. The man of the kingdom of goodness 'speaks,' but the wicked one 'howls' or 'roars'; the former 'eats,' but the latter 'devours'; the good one 'walks,' but the wicked 'rushes'; the one has a 'head,' but the other has a 'skull'; the one dwells in a 'house,' the other in a 'burrow.'[1] Thus the antithesis between good and evil becomes even more and more prominent. It is indelible. Evil remains as real a factor as good, as independent, and as active. There is a pronounced antithesis and an active warfare between the two rival spirits, and reconciliation or peace between them is impossible. Every prayer in the Younger Avesta begins with the exhortation to propitiate the Good Spirit and abjure the Evil One. Man is warned to guard himself from the wiles of Angra Mainyu.
The earliest non-Zoroastrian writers speak of Zoroastrianism as the religion of dualism. Early Greek writers, who, we can safely assert, were contemporary at least with the Later Avestan period, speak of the religion of Iran as based on the belief in two rival spirits. Hippolytus relates, on the authority of Aristoxenus (about 320 b.c.), that the Persians believed in two primeval causes of existence, the first being Light, or the father, and the second, Darkness, the mother.[2] On the authority of Diogenes Laertius we have the assurance that Eudoxus and Aristotle wrote of these two powers as Zeus, or Oromazdes, and Hades, or Areimanios.[3] Plutarch (a.d. 46-120) narrates, in the same tone, that Oromazdes came from light, and Areimanios from darkness. The Good Spirit created six archangels and other divine beings, and the Evil One created as a counterpoise to them six arch-fiends, and other infernal creatures, and the devil's activity of counter-creation extended also to the physical world, for in opposition to the creation of good animals and plants by Oromazdes, he brought forth noxious creatures and poisonous plants. His opposition permeates the entire creation and will last up to the end of time, when he will be defeated and be made to disappear.[4] Plutarch himself further mentions,
