I colori del tempo e dell’anima tra Occidente e Vicino Oriente

Antonio C. D. Panaino

Dipartimento di Beni Culturali

Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Accademico Effettivo

Abstract

This contribution summaries some results of a work in progress dedicated to the philosophical and theological Zoroastrian interpretation of the role of the supreme god, Ohrmazd, as a dyer. This image has been framed within a net of pertinent doctrines, concerning the Christian idea of the “baptism” as a tincture obtained by means of an immersion, but also the image of Jesus the dyer, and the adaptation of these traditions within the Islāmic framework. The idea of a dying of the soul as an alchemic phenomenon is also part of this discussion, which involves Gnostic, Hermetic and Manichaean contributions. But the role of Ohrmazd as a super dyer, which gives all the colors, even the dark ones, and thus without any dualistic separation and opposition, is due to an Iranian elaboration of a Greek philosophical tradition, in which the colors can be visible thanks to the light. Within a theological framework, Ahreman in the abyss cannot be given with colors, but his black dye is due to the light of god. The article briefly discusses some philosophical chapters of the Pahlavi book known as Dēnkard, where the colors are connected with the social positive and negative classes and functions, within a picture which describes the tincture of time as a mixture of the different colors produced by the historical interaction, positive or negative, of these actors.

Keywords

Zoroastrianism, Colors, Time, History, Castes, Intercultural phenomena.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license

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