COSMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN LATE ZOROASTRIAN THEOLOGY. The Cosmic Antagonist Kingdoms, the Void, and the Finitude of Ohrmazd between actual and potential Infinity in Late Zoroastrianism.

This book investigates some major cosmological and ontological problems of Late Antique and medieval Zoroastrian theology. It focuses on the primordial kingdoms of Ohrmazd and Ahreman, the intermediate void, and the complex relationship between infinity and finitude. The primordial cosmos is reconstructed as a tripartite “multiverse” comprising the realm of Light, the intermediate void associated with Wāy, and the realm of Darkness. These three dimensions are only partially unlimited and are therefore better understood as different forms of potential infinity rather than as fully actual infinities. The study distinguishes older mythological representations from later philosophical reinterpretations developed through interaction with Greek, Syriac, Christian, and Islamic thought. Particular importance is assigned to the Aristotelian distinction between potential and actual infinity as a conceptual key for interpreting the Mazdean cosmological system. The gētīg world created by Ohrmazd constitutes a deliberately finite arena in space and time, designed as a cosmic trap in which Ahreman can ultimately be defeated. By entering this limited creation, Ahreman’s potentially unlimited power becomes circumscribed and subjected to conditions radically different from those of his primordial existence. Ohrmazd, by contrast, controls both limited and unlimited time, while the higher part of his universe remains perfect, unlimited, and inaccessible to evil. Yet Ohrmazd’s own ipseity is not conceived as infinite: his determinate and self-contained perfection constitutes the philosophical foundation of his omniscience. The book also examines the divergent traditions concerning Ahreman’s final destiny, ranging from mythological destruction and beheading to more sophisticated philosophical solutions. It rejects the hypothesis that Ahreman is ultimately expelled into an external void or restored to an autonomous realm of primordial Darkness. More coherent philosophical accounts envisage instead his complete disintegration and reduction to irreversible impotence, excluding any future reactivation of evil. At the Frašgird, limited time is reabsorbed into infinite time, while the differentiated cosmic strata are reunited within a transfigured and entirely paradisiacal universe. A final philological and philosophical appendix shows that the Mazdean “void” is not simply empty space, but a historically developed cosmological category functioning as an intermediate and potentially infinite “no man’s land.”