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Why was ancient Iranian dualism different from Gnostic beliefs about matter?

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religious sites of ancient Indo-Iranian peoples — ancient Iranian religion Significant religious sites and sites containing religious artifacts of ancient Indo-Iranian peoples, including those of peoples of adjacent areas and modern Zoroastrians.

Ancient Iranian dualism, particularly as expressed in Zoroastrianism, differs significantly from Gnostic beliefs regarding matter.

In Zoroastrianism, the dualistic struggle between good and evil is not synonymous with an opposition between spirit and matter. While Zoroastrian ethics emphasize striving for purity and avoiding defilement by forces of death or decay, the material world itself is not inherently evil. Zoroastrians are encouraged to engage with the world using both soul and body, and practices such as celibacy or extreme asceticism are generally proscribed because they reject the goodness of creation.1

Conversely, Gnosticism is characterized by a more negative attitude toward the material cosmos. Many Gnostic traditions view matter as evil and spirit as good, often adopting an "antisomatic" stance that treats the body as a prison or tomb for the divine soul. While Gnosticism shares some eschatological features with Iranian traditions, its core ontology often involves a radical anticosmism, where the material world is seen as the creation of an inferior or malevolent demiurge from which the spiritual self must be liberated.23