1 For the contrast between the priestly class (asrōn) and heretics, see my discussion below and Shaked, Shaul The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages: Dēnkard VI (Boulder, CO, 1979), 138–9Google Scholar and 96–7: “They held this too: Excess and tyranny are the adversary of rulers. Deficiency and heresy are the adversary of priests.”

2 For a similar study on social terms in Manichaean texts, see, e.g., Colditz, Iris “Aspects of Social Terminology in the Middle Persian and Parthian Manichaean Texts from Turfan,” in Manichaeism and Early Christianity, ed. L. Cirillo and A. van Tongerloo (Leuven, 1997), 23–40Google Scholar.

3 The frequent English translation of dēn as “religion” is highly problematic, as is the translation of the term agdēn as “infidel”; for more, see the conclusion to this article, and the recent article on the meaning of this term in relation to the Avesta's status in the Sasanian era, and as an “ocean of knowledge,” by Skjaervø, Prods Oktor, “The Zoroastrian Oral Tradition as Reflected in the Texts,” in The Transmission of the Avesta, ed. Alberto Cantera (Wiesbaden, 2012), 3–48Google Scholar, esp. 20–25. For another relevant article on this and related subjects, see Vevaina, Yuhan S.-D., “‘Enumerating the Dēn’: Textual Taxonomies, Cosmological Deixis, and Numerological Speculations in Zoroastrianism,” History of Religions 50, no. 2 (2010): 111–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 In MP, Mādayān-ī Hazār Dādestān or MHD. See Macuch, Maria Die sasanidische Rechtsbuch “Mātakdān i hazār dātistān” (Teil II) (Wiesbaden, 1981)Google Scholar; and Perikhanian, Anahit The Book of A Thousand Judgments: A Sasanian Law Book (Costa Mesa, CA, 1973)Google Scholar. For more on the date of this work, see Macuch, Maria “Pahlavi Literature,” in The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran, ed. Ronald E. Emmerick and Maria Macuch (New York, 2009), 116–96Google Scholar, esp. 188, where the author writes that the work was compiled sometime during or after the reign of Khusrow II (590–628 CE).

5 For a French translation of the third book of the Dēnkard, which is sometimes translated as Acts of the Religion, see Menasce, Jean de, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart. Traduit du pehlevi (Paris, 1973)Google Scholar. For more on Zoroastrian polemics against Judaism and other religions, see the critical edition of the tenth-century Pāzand work by Menasce, Jean de, Škand-gumānīk vičār: la solution décisive des doutes, une apologétique Mazdéenne du IXe siècle: texte pazand-pehlevi transcrit, traduit et commenté (Fribourg, 1945)Google Scholar, henceforth referred to as ŠGW; Shaked, Shaul “Zoroastrian Polemics against Jews in the Sasanian and Early Islamic Period,” in Irano-Judaica II: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture Throughout the Ages, ed. Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer (Jerusalem, 1990), 85–104Google Scholar; Ahdut, Eli “Jewish–Zoroastrian Polemics in the Babylonian Talmud,” in Irano-Judaica IV: Studies Relating to Jewish Contexts with Persian Culture, ed. Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer (Jerusalem, 1999), 17–40Google Scholar; Jong, Albert de, “Zoroastrian Religious Polemics and their Contexts,” in Religious Polemics in Context, ed. A. van der Kooij and Theo L. Hettema (Assen, 2004), 48–63Google Scholar; and Thrope, Samuel “Contradictions and Vile Utterances: The Zoroastrian Critique of Judaism in the Škand Gumānīg Wizār” (PhD diss., Graduate Theological Union, 2012)Google Scholar, esp. 160–87 on the relationship between the ŠGW and the Dēnk. III, the other major work of polemics.

6 Macuch, Maria “The Hērbedestān as a Legal Source: A Section on the Inheritance of a Convert to Zoroastrianism,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute: Iranian and Zoroastrian Studies in Honor of Prods Oktor Skjaervø 19 (2009): 91–102Google Scholar, esp. 91; Macuch, Maria “Legal Constructions of Identity in the Sasanian Period,” in Iranian Identity in the Course of History. Proceedings of the Conference held in Rome, 21–24 September 2005, ed. Carlo G. Cereti (Roma, 2010), 193–212Google Scholar, esp. 209, where she places infidels and foreigners under the Sasanian category of “persons with limited legal capacity, accepted under certain conditions in practice (e.g., in litigation) as ‘subjects of law’, when dealing with Iranian citizens.”

7 In further deciphering MP jargon, Iranists can draw from the field of Talmudic Studies, which often emphasizes internal hermeneutical and source-critical approaches to texts as the necessary foundation upon which historical claims should be based; by way of example, see Hayes, Christine Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah (New York, 1997)Google Scholar.

8 See the study on post-Sasanian developments in Choksy, Jamsheed K., Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York, 1997)Google Scholar.

9 See Levy-Rubin, Milka, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (New York, 2011), 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See, e.g., Jong, Albert de, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (Leiden, 1997), 409CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “In theory, Zoroastrians are forbidden to have physical, personal or even commercial contacts with followers of other faiths (jud-dēn; agdēn; jud-kēš etc.). In earlier Zoroastrian literature, the existence of other faiths—apart from the daēva-worshippers—is scarcely mentioned. Much evidence comes from the Christian martyrologies (for instance the fact that apostasy from Zoroastrianism was a capital punishment), and from the instructions in later Pahlavi texts.”

11 The MHD is a Sasanian legal compilation from circa 590–632 CE containing both real and hypothetical cases potentially adjudicated in official Sasanian courts; for more on this work, see Macuch, “Pahlavi Literature,” 188.

12 The word wahāg can also be translated as “trading,” according to MacKenzie, David N., A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary (London, 1990 [reprint]), 86Google Scholar.

13 Unless indicated otherwise, the transcriptions of the MHD and Dēnkard in this article are based on Prods Oktor Skjaervø's unpublished transcriptions of Middle Persian literature, personal communication. For other versions of this passage from the MHD, compare also Perikhanian, The Book of A Thousand Judgments, 28–9; Macuch, Die sasanidische Rechtsbuch, 22–5. For a comparison of this passage with Roman laws regarding Jewish slave owners, see Corcoran, Simon “Observations on the Sasanian Law-Book in the light of Roman Legal Writing,” in Law, Custom, and Justice in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Proceedings of the 2008 Byzantine Colloquium, ed. A. Rio (London, 2011), 77–113Google Scholar, esp. 84.

14 Other Pahlavi sources which discuss Christians include: Jaafari-Dehaghi, Mahmoud, Dādestān ī Dēnīg (Paris, 1998), 138–9;Google Scholar Amouzgar, Jaleh and Tafazzoli, Ahmad, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard: transcription, traduction, et commentaire (Paris, 2000), 72–81Google Scholar and 102–3 on the Christian figure of Bōxt-Mārē; Tavadia, Jehangir C., Šāyast nē Šāyast: A Pahlavi Text on Religious Customs (Hamburg, 1930), 96–7Google Scholar, where it reads that the worst law is that of “the Manichaeans, Christians, and Jews”; and Chacha, H.F., Gajastak Abâlish: Pahlavi Text with Transliteration, English Translation, Notes and Glossary (Bombay, 1936), 12Google Scholar, 18, 41, 43.

15 See Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 119.

16 See Kotwal, Firoze M. and Kreyenbroek, Philip G., with contributions by James R. Russell, The Hērbedestān and Nērangestān: Volume I, Hērbedestān (Paris, 1992), 64–5Google Scholar: “It is permissible to steal from infidels in order to convert them, but it is not permissible to rob them.” See also the critical edition of this work by Helmut Humbach in cooperation with Josef Elfenbein, Ērbedestān: An Avesta-Pahlavi Text (Munich, 1990).

17 See the summary by Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 119. The Hērb. also attests to Sasanians' jurisdiction over the sale of slaves to infidels; see Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, Hērbedestān, 60–61: “If a Zoroastrian slave is sold to infidels then the responsibility (for dealing with this) is transferred to the (religious) authorities.”

18 For another relevant passage on slaves, thievery, and the rad, see Williams, Alan V., The Pahlavi Rivāyat accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg. Part II: Translation, Commentary, and Pahlavi Text (Copenhagen, 1990), 56Google Scholar.

19 For more on the position of the MP rad, see Kreyenbroek, Philip G., “On the Concept of Spiritual Authority in Zoroastrianism,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 17 (1994): 1–15Google Scholar; for several exemplary primary texts on the rad, see Tavadia, Šāyast nē Šāyast, 104–9, and Perikhanian, The Book of a Thousand Judgments, 266–7.

20 Another theme that appears in the agdēn passages is material and spiritual charity; see Shaked, Shaul The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages: Dēnkard VI (Boulder, CO, 1979), 112–13Google Scholar, where it states that one should give alms to a poor man of evil religion; see de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 76, on reciting the Gathas to save the soul of a deceased infidel; Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard, 56–7, which says that one should offer charity to believers of the evil religion when they suffer an injury; and Tavadia, Šāyast nē Šāyast, 97, where a tradition attributed to Kay-Ādur-Bōzēd says that an infidel who has done more good work (kirbag) than sins (wināh) is spared from hell.

21 See, e.g., Macuch, “The Hērbedestān as a Legal Source,” 93, who discusses this in the context of the Hērbedestān (see below).

22 For a helpful translation and discussion of this passage, see Simonsohn, Uriel I., A Common Justice: The Legal Alliances of Christians and Jews in Early Islam (Philadelphia, 2011), 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who notes that the last line “suggests that, at least partially, non-Zoroastrians fell under the same legal jurisdiction as their Zoroastrian neighbors”; and compare Perikhanian, The Book of a Thousand Judgments, 154–5.

23 See Touraj Daryaee, “Ethnic and Territorial Boundaries in Late Antique and Early Medieval Persia (Third to Tenth Century),” in Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis: Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Florin Curta (Turnhout, 2005), 123–38, esp. 125 where the author concludes that “the word agdēn (‘evil religion’) always applies to Islam, not to Christianity.”

24 On the date of the Hērbedestān and Nērangestān, which are based on two corrupt and late manuscripts, see Macuch, “Pahlavi Literature,” 129 where she dates the commentaries to after Yazdegird III's calendar reform in 632 CE; and see the research on the main authorities cited in these MP works by Elman, Yaakov “The Other in the Mirror: Iranians and Jews View One Another: Questions of Identity, Conversion and Exogamy in the Fifth-Century Iranian Empire, Part One,” in Bulletin of the Asia Institute: Iranian and Zoroastrian Studies in Honor of Prods Oktor Skjaervø (ed. Carol Altman Bromberg, Nicholas Sims-Williams and Ursula Sims-Williams) 19 (2009): 15–25Google Scholar.

25 See Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard, 46–7, which lists crimes worthy of death.

26 For another relevant text about the agdēn and act of burying the dead, see Anklesaria, Behramgore Tehmuras, Pahlavi Vendidâd (Bombay, 1949), 60–61Google Scholar.

27 For example, see Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, Hērbedestān, 64–5: “It is xwar-sin to have intercourse with a whore who is an infidel non-Iranian mortal sinner.”

28 Macuch, “The Hērbedestān as a Legal Source,” 91–2.

29 There are differences in translation here; e.g., compare Humbach, Ērbedestān, 84–5: ka pid pad nōg *tarsāgāhīh nē kard ēstēd ā-z pus ō *wehdēnīh, “When (the son of one of evil religion) has not renewed (his) reverence to (his) father, then the son (belongs) to those of the Good Religion,” versus Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, Hērbedestān, 62–3: ka pid pad nōg *tarsāgīh nē kard ēstēd ā-š pus *ōh *āyēnišn, “then one should allow his son to come (to pursue religious studies).”

30 For more on this term, as well as on the differences between annulments and divorce in the context of conversions to or from Zoroastrianism, see Macuch, “The Hērbedestān as a Legal Source,” 94.

31 Ibid., 96 explains that this law forbids the daily allowance to be passed on to the Christian Church, and that the infidel does not own the money but rather merely is in possession of it.

32 Ibid., 93.

33 The translation here represents my slightly modified version of the various translations by Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, Hērbedestān, 63; Humbach, Ērbedestān, 84–7; and esp. Macuch, “The Hērbedestān as a Legal Source,” 92, with important explanatory notes. This text goes on to discuss the issue of inheritance when a man who converts to Zoroastrianism has died, on which see ibid., 96–8.

34 See also Tavadia, Šāyast nē Šāyast, 97, which attributes a tradition to Kay-Ādur-Bōzēd on how an infidel can save himself from hell by doing more virtuous deeds than sins. This passage goes on to contrast the followers of the pure law and pōryōtkēšān vis-à-vis the followers of the worst law, namely Manichaeans, Christians, and Jews. See also Macuch, “Pahlavi Literature,” 143, where she translates the following passage from the ninth-century work the Dādestān ī Dēnīg: “In order to save the infidel (agdēn) who is not a foreigner from death and sickness resulting from hunger, thirst, cold and heat, when he has renounced, it is custom to give him food, clothing, and medicine. But property, horses, weapons, instruments, wine and land are not given authorizedly to foreigners and infidels.”

35 Macuch, “The Hērbedestān as a Legal Source,” 94.

36 In all, there are not that many Pahlavi sources about Judaism; see Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics against Jews,” where he translates texts from the Dēnk. III. Other Pahlavi sources which reference Jews include Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard, 109 n. 3 where the editors discuss the name Yākob son of Xālid to whom the book is addressed, and who could be Muslim or a Jew; Tavadia, Šāyast nē Šāyast, 97. For early scholarship on the images of Jews in Pahlavi see Gray, Louis H., “The Jews in Pahlavi Literature,” Jewish Encyclopedia IX (New York and London, 1905), 462–5Google Scholar; Darmesteter, James “Textes Pehlvis relatifs au Judaisme: seconde partie,” Revue des études juives 19 (1889): 41–56Google Scholar.

37 As is fairly common in Pahlavi texts, these chapters sometimes use the terms wehdēn and dušdēn synonymously with hudēn and agdēn, respectively.

38 See the translation of lines 1–11 in Shaked, Shaul “Religion in the Late Sasanian Period: Eran, Aneran, and other Religious Designations,” in The Sasanian Era: The Idea of Iran, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart (New York, 2008), 103–17Google Scholar, esp. the appendix on 113–14.

39 With its strong political undertones, this passage represents an example of a broader trend in Pahlavi narratives that connect infidels to the apocalyptic experiences of the loss of the Iranian kingdom to the Arabs. Other texts from the early Islamic period relate the collapse of the Sasanian social order to the rise of the evil religion, often polemicizing against both Jewish and Islamic law. For instance, in the Zoroastrian apocalyptic work called the Memorial of Jāmāsp (Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg) translated by Messina, G Libro apocalittico persiano Ayatkar I Zamasp (Rome, 1939), 114Google Scholar, the authors discuss how the treasures of Iran will fall into the hands of the infidels.

40 See Schwartz, Martin “Transformations of the Indo-Iranian Snake-Man: Myth, Language, Ethnoarcheology, and Iranian Identity,” Iranian Studies 45, no. 2 (2012): 275–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Dēnk. III 227.13–16. See also Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 97–9; Shaked, “Religion in the Late Sasanian Period,” 113–14; Marijan Molé, Culte, mythe et cosmologie dans l'Iran ancien (Paris, 1963), 53 and 55; de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 240. For manuscripts of the Dēnk., see Madan, Dhanjishah Meherjibhai, The Complete Text of the Pahlavi Dinkart, vols. 1–2 (Bombay, 1911), 253–54Google Scholar, and compare MS B by Dresden, M.J., Dēnkart: A Pahlavi Text. A Facsimile Edition of the Manuscript B of the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute Bombay (Wiesbaden, 1966)Google Scholar.

42 For an explanation of the word tāz, see Thrope, “Contradictions and Vile Utterances,” 171 n. 73.

43 The initial letter is problematic; see, e.g., Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 99 n. 3 on the possibility of reading this as rēxtan, “flow, pour,” instead of wirēxtan, “to flee.”

44 Cf. Molé, Culte, 53: visānēnītan.

45 Cf. Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 97, who adds the ezāfe ī> in place of ud.

46 Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 97 and 99 reads mōšē ī narm-paywand, ke, “Moses, whose bond is feeble,” citing on 99 n. 4 that the authors mean to contrast this description of Moses as humble with an earlier passage, not cited above, about Yima. As far as I can tell, the term narm-paywand does not appear in combination elsewhere in MP.

47 Cf. Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 98: *windādan, “to find, acquire.” See also the word *āškār-, “to reveal.”

48 Shaked skips a portion of the text here.

49 Per Molé; Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 98: šēb, “declivity.”

50 See the other reference to Jerusalem in Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard, 22–3.

51 For this meaning of the verb dāštan, see Francis Joseph Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary (London, 1892), 498.

52 See Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 99 n. 5 where the author translates this verb as “shot forth.”

53 For the best summary of this key figure in Zoroastrian mythology, see Prods Oktor Skjaervø, “Aždahā i. In Old and Middle Iranian,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, online ed., available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/ articles/azdaha-dragon-various-kinds#pt1.

54 See de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 102, where the text mentions dastwars of the agdēn.

55 See the translation in Shaked, “Zoroastrian Polemics,” 92: “One, as that which broadens the world is the law of the Mazdean religion, and that which destroys the world is the law of the Jewish faith, the order of the rulers is pure and lawful, and their law is that of the Mazdean religion, and it is necessary to abstain from the Jewish law.” See also the translation of Dēnk. VI, ch. 321, in Shaked, The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages, 128–9: “A Jew is not wicked merely on account of his Jewish faith and followers of other evil religions (agdēn) are not wicked merely on account of their bad religion (agdēnīh).”

56 See, e.g., Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard, 46–7. The word agdēn sometimes appears in eschatological texts about Sōšyans; see, e.g., Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 42–3, where Sōšyans restores the world against heresy (ahlomōgīh) and infidelity (agdēnīh), and 148–9 where it states that after the renovation “there is no infidelity since there is no false speech.”

57 The compound verb abāz stāyīdan, which is relatively uncommon in Pahlavi, has the negative meaning “to deprecate, reject, repudiate, renounce,” on which see de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 196; Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 168–9, where it espouses the law that an adult deserves the death penalty for leaving the good religion for a non-Iranian religion. See also Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard, 46–7, where in a text about agdēnīh, the verb abāz stāyīdan is contrasted with stāyīdan, “to praise.”

58 For a philological analysis of the MP term hād, see Skjaervø, Prods Oktor, “On the Terminology and Style of the Pahlavi Scholastic Literature,” in The Talmud in its Iranian Context, ed. Carol Bakhos and M. Rahim Shayegan (Tübingen, 2010), 178–205Google Scholar, esp. 187.

59 Or possibly ahrimenīg. This corrupt word is spelled the same way in both manuscripts; if it is ahlomōgīg, then it is missing the letter ‘k’ before the adjectival suffix. Given that other passages in Pahlavi literature connect the concepts of agdēn and ahlomōg (see below), ahlomōg is meant here.

60 Dēnk. III 189. de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 240.

61 See Safa-Isfehani, Nezhat, Rivāyat ī Hēmīt ī Ašawahistān: A Study in Zoroastrian Law (Cambridge, MA, 1980), 9–10Google Scholar, where in an appendix to question one (see below) the author cites comments by H.K. Mirza: “Here heresy, not believing in any religion, is regarded as ‘satanic, demonic’, and considering one's own Zoroastrian religion as ‘not good’, and hence adopting an alien religion, is regarded as an act ‘pertaining to bad religion.’ This clearly shows that Pahlavi akdēn, a ‘person of bad religion,’ is a Zoroastrian convert to Islam.”

62 Further supporting this impression, see Shaked, The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages, 96–7: “They held this too: The adversary of religion is bad religion and non-Iranian behaviour; its false associate is heresy.”

63 See Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat ī Hēmīt ī Ašawahistān, 9, who notes that the Vendīdād chapter 18 defines an infidel as someone who does not wear the ritual kustig belt or pray; see the gloss of this word with “heretic” in Anklesaria, Pahlavi Vendidâd, 349–50.

64 DkM 262 and cf. MS B 197; see de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, 248.

65 Whether the MHD, which does not define what constitutes the beliefs of an infidel, would agree that a person's beliefs in axw determines his or her status as a believer or infidel is hard to determine.

66 See DkM 143–4 and MS B 109, and the translation by Gignoux, Philippe Man and Cosmos in Ancient Iran (Roma, 2001), 98Google Scholar.

67 Ibid., 99.

68 Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation, esp. 89, and for more on the interactions between Zoroastrians and Muslims, see Choksy, Jamsheed K., “Zoroastrians in Muslim Iran: Selected Problems of Coexistence and Interaction during the Early Medieval Period,” Iranian Studies 20, no. 1 (1987): 17–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation, 89 and 124–5.

70 This translation is an adaptation of Safa-Isfehani, Rivāyat ī Hēmīt ī Ašawahistān, 20–24.

71 See also Williams, The Pahlavi Rivāyat accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 10. This passage praises Zoroastrian converts to Islam who return to the Good Religion, equating it with the virtuous act of xwēdōdah.

72 See ibid., 27, where the text restricts buying meat from non-Iranians and infidels and prohibits exchanges between the groups.