Zurvan

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Lion-headed deity from a mithraic in Ostia Antica ( CIMRM 312)

Zurvan (also Zervan ) is the creator god in the Zurvanistic special form of Zoroastrianism . As a personification of time and eternity , he was considered the father of Ahura Mazda and his adversary Angra Mainyu .

The name corresponds to the Middle Persian zurwān (time) and is derived from the avestic zruvā (stem zruvan- ) (time). Because of inscriptions with the consonants ZRW (s) and zraovo is believed that Zurvan even with the Sogdians and Bactrians as high god was worshiped.

In the 3rd century the name was also used by the Manichaeans , with whom Zurvan only acted as the Middle Persian name of Abbā dəRabbūṯā ( Aramaic "father of light").

The depictions of a man with a lion's head and wings (sometimes also as a bearded man), around whose feet a snake winds, found in Roman Mithras sanctuaries , were interpreted by Franz Cumont , the important researcher of the Mithras religion , as images of Zurvan. Since the interpretation advocated by Cumont is now in doubt due to extensive correspondences with old Iranian-Zoroastrian myths, it remains unclear whether these are representations of Zurvan, of the Aion syncretistically mixed with him, or something completely different.

literature

  • L. Brisson: La figure de Chronos dans la théogonie orphique. In: D. Tiffeneau (ed.): Mythes et représentations de temps. 1985, pp. 37-55
  • Richard L. Gordon: Zurvan. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 12, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01470-3 , column 849 f.
  • S. Shaked: The Myth of Zurvan. In: I. Gruenewald et al. (Ed.): Messiah and Christos. 1992, pp. 219-240
  • David Ulansey: The Origins of the Mithraic Cult. Theiss, Stuttgart 1998
  • Geo Widengren : The Cervanism. In: Iranian Spiritual World from the Beginnings to Islam. Holle, Baden-Baden 1961, (licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering) pp. 77-108, in particular pp. 83 f. ( The god of time and his myth )
  • Robert C. Zaehner: Zurvan: a Zoroastrian dilemma. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955

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