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30 CE: Christian community founded in Syria,
"universalizing the appeal of Jewish divinity" (p.126). 70 CE:
Destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans led to the evolution of Rabbinic
Judaism. 226 CE: Sasanian empire replaces the Parthians in
Iran. 273 CE: Mani dies. 275 - 292 CE:
under Bahram II, Zoroastrian
Mazdeism becomes official religion of Sasanian empire. 324 -
337 CE: Christianity gains official position in reorganised Roman empire,
under Constantine I, and subsequently becomes legally enforced.
Irano-Semitic religious traditions:
Abrahamic and Mazdean traditions' outlook "...may be summed up
as looking to justice in history through community" (p.130)
"...these religious allegiances, extremely varied as they were
in their approaches. achieved in common one grand result: the eliminated (or
took over or transformed) the old tribal and civic cults, replacing them for
public purposes with their own rites; and they accustomed the people of most of
the Oikoumenic citied zone to expect every serious individual to acknowledge at
least some sort of life-orientational tradition ... [In] the Western zone,
they even accustomed people to expect some religious allegiance to be not merely
patronized by enforced officially by governments..." (p.128)
485 - 531 CE:
Mazdak challenges Zoroastrian and Sasanian aristocracy.
525 CE: End of Jewish rule in Yemen. "All
the confessional religious traditions may be called somewhat populistic in that
they tended to cats their doctrines and their moral standards into forms
intelligible to the ordinary person. But among some of the Irano-Semitic
religious communities, populist values were stressed..." (p.130)
Populism: Mercantile classes distinguishing themselves from
aristocratic sensibilities. | 
