The Persian Origins of Satan and the Whore of Babylon
“Satan didn’t arise from Hell fully formed. The concept of an ultimate Evil One was apparently borrowed from the Persians and continued to evolve throughout antiquity.” (Elon Gilad, ‘Do Jews Believe in the Devil?,’ Haaretz, Oct 23, 2018)
‘Satan’ arose from within early Zoroastrianism, to be precise, from the figure of Ahriman, also called Angra Mainyu or ‘The Lie,’ the polarized entity embodying Absolute Evil, opposing Ahura Mazda (“Good Mind”), the polarized entity embodying Absolute Good. Ahriman was aided in destroying the world through the offices of Jahi the Whore (“Menstruation”), who finally roused him from his thousand year-long slumber to wreak havoc upon God, His archangels, and the world at large by her insistent, repetitive claims of her greater, malignant agency:
“Rise up, thou father of the world! For in that righteous conflict I will shed thus much vexation on the righteous man and the labouring ox that, through my deeds, life will not be wanted, and I will destroy their living souls (nismo); I will empoison the water, I will empoison the plants, I will empoison the fire of Ahura Mazda, I will make the whole of creation empoisoned. And so she recounted those Evil deeds a second time, that the evil spirit was delighted and started up from that confusion; and he kissed Jahi on the head; and the pollution which they call menstruation became apparent in Jahi. He shouted to Jahi thus: ‘What is thy wish? So that I may give it thee.’ And Jahi shouted to the evil spirit thus: ‘A man is the wish, so give it to me.’ The form of the evil spirit was a log-like lizard’s (vazak) body, and he appeared as a young man of fifteen years to Jahi, and that brought the thoughts of Jahi to him.” (Müller, ‘The Zend Avesta,’ Ancient Texts Series, 1880, 16.)
The role of feminine physiology, personified as Jahi or, in later Middle Persian, ‘Jeh, in a demonized form as unlimited sexuality is positioned on the side of primordial evil. The following text gives some information on the etymology of the demoness’ name:
The figure of Jeh appears in Zoroastrian texts as the personification of the pollution of menstruation. Jehis the Middle Persian rendition of an older Avestan word, jahi or jahika, which, due to its context, is usually translated in a pejorative sense to mean “whore,” although its etymology remains uncertain.
Jahika appears frequently in the early Zoroastrian texts. The word can mean “woman” or a woman who cannot reproduce. It is also used of the woman who behaves improperly — practices sorcery, or is promiscuous. As the epitome of an evildoer, Jahi threatens the good creation physically in that her glance dries up one-third of the rivers and one-third of vegetation, and her touch withers one-third of the good thoughts, good words, good deeds, holiness, and ability to combat evil of the faithful person (Vendidad 18.63–64). Because of her destructive potential, Jahi is worse than the other miscreations of Ahriman, the Destructive Spirit (Vd. 18.65). The threat she poses is echoed in proscriptions for menstruating women: Women in menses are to remain separate from the elements of creation, especially fire, in case they cause harm with their gaze (Vd. 16.1–4).
In the Middle Persian texts, Jahi, as Jeh, becomes the archetypal Whore. The Bundahishnplaces Jeh in filial relationship with Angra Mainyu (also called Ahriman). Jeh’s words revive Ahriman from a three-thousand-year stupor, and he kisses her on the head, at which moment she becomes the first to be polluted by the blood of menstruation (Bd. 4.4f.). This is one of the few myths concerning the origin of menstruation.
In the material battle between good and evil, Jeh is pitted against all virtuous women (Bd. 5.3), since they are all subject to menstruation and its inherent pollution. Jeh is also referred to collectively as an adversarial “species” (Bd. 14 a.1). In Wizidagiha-i Zadspramshe appears as Jeh-dev — the “whore demonness” — the queen of Ahriman, who leads her band of demonesses to corrupt all women, and, thus all men (WZ 34.30–31). The Jehdev’s sexuality is unlimited, and her promiscuity presents a challenge to the virtue of the faithful. (https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jeh, Updated Dec 17 2019)
In the Vendidad Jahi is characterized as causing Ahura Mazda “the most grief”.(Vendidad 18.62) “Her gaze takes the colors away from a third of [world]”. (Vendidad 18.64) Jahi is also given the cosmological role of killer of Gav-aevo.data (MP: Gawi ewdad), the primordial creature from whose seed all animal creation originates. (Vendidad 21.1)
In the Sudgar Nask, the holy element of fire is polluted by the stench and filth of Jahi’s abundant hair — the long, lustrous, seductive hair of women being constructed as having been formed from menstrual matter in ancient texts. The ‘pure’ fire element is threatened by Jahi (“Menstruation”), “owing to the hussy who, dropping her knee on to the fire-stand, arranged her curls; the falling of damp and moisture from her head, with the hair and filth therefrom.” (Denkard 9.1.10.6) The Sudgar Nask is an Avestan text that has not survived. However, its contents are summarized in The Dēnkard or Dēnkart (Middle Persian: “Acts of Religion”), a 10th-century compendium of Zoroastrian beliefs and customs. These figures’ primordial conspiracy to ‘empoison’ the world formed one pole of the first rigidly polarized dualistic religion and also the first ruthlessly binary political ideology. Zoroastrianism was a state religion, the ideology of which was designed to absolute power of the king. It’s logics are at the root of the dialectical model of thought, and the foundation of the religio-socio-cultural pattern of constant warfare.
The figures of Ahriman and Jahi the Whore, or “Menstruation,” in their conjoined subversion of ‘God’s Order,’ are the models for the later malign partnerships of Eve and the Serpent in the primordial and ‘pure’ Garden of Eden, Pandora and her box of blights (symbol of her menstruation) after she is forged by the Greek creator god Hephaestus, and the Whore of Babylon with Satan in the form of the dragon of the Apocalypse, when the ‘Great Whore’ “pours out the cup filled with the pollutions of her fornications” (a transparent cipher for her menstruation) at the end of the world in Revelations.
