Angra Mainyu vs Zurvan

The Hostile Spirit of Zoroastrianism, source of death, lies, and every plague, who in the Vendidad 'counter-creates' an evil against each good land Ahura Mazda makes, and who will be defeated at the end of time.

In the Gathas one of two primal spirits, called twins (Yasna 30.3); in the Zurvanite myth the elder of Zurvan's twin sons, born of his father's doubt.

The opening chapter of the Vendidad lists sixteen good lands created by Ahura Mazda and, against each, a plague created by Angra Mainyu, 'who is all death': the serpent and winter, the locust, plunder, doubt, witchcraft, and more. The pattern of creation and counter-creation is the core of his character: he makes nothing good, only corruption of what is good.

Infinite Time, whom a Sasanian-era current of Zoroastrian thought made the father of both Ohrmazd and Ahriman, born as twins from his sacrifice and his doubt; known mainly from hostile Christian and Armenian writers, and rejected by later orthodoxy.

Uncreated, the first being in the Zurvanite myth.

The fullest account comes not from a Zoroastrian text but from the fifth-century Armenian Christian Eznik of Kolb, in his *Refutation of the Sects*, with parallels in Syriac Christian sources. Before anything existed, Zurvan offered sacrifice for a thousand years in order to have a son who would create heaven and earth. Then he doubted whether his sacrifice would bear fruit, and from his doubt Ahriman was conceived, while from the sacrifice Ohrmazd was conceived. Zurvan vowed that whichever son reached him first would be king. Ohrmazd, knowing this, told his brother; Ahriman tore open the womb and presented himself, and Zurvan, bound by his vow, gave him rule for nine thousand years, after which Ohrmazd would reign.