Ohrmazd’s Divine Mercy and the End of the World between Apokatastasis and Apocalyptic

The present contribution focuses on the central importance of the concept of apokatastasis, – the full regeneration of the world and the annihilation of Hell –, in the framework of the Zoroastrian doctrine of the end of the world; its origin and development. Furthermore, this study strongly insists on a necessary distinction with respect to the more frequently mentioned doctrine of the apocalypse, which in any case does not strictly concern the end of the millennial Mazdean cycle, but dramatically marks only a historical phase of crisis. The idea of apokatastasis does not belong to the earliest Iranian tradition, but it was the fruit of a slow process of adaptation of new theological ideas, partly of Christian origin, emerging in a phase of crisis. The final synthesis showed a renovation in the theological and philosophical perception of the annihilation of Hell, within a new universal optimistic cosmological perspective.