The religion that grew out of his preachings about right and wrong, heaven and hell and a savior who would come to save the world was at one time practiced by an estimated 50 million people. But most Zoroastrians in the Near East submitted to conversion under the pressure of the Arab conquest of Iran after the rise of Islam in the seventh century, and the religion today is estimated to have fewer than 200,000 followers.

Before its decline, however, Zoroastrianism influenced Christian, Muslim and Judaic theology. Some people also credit the belief in monotheism to Zarathushtra, but Schwartz says it's more complicated than that. Zarathushtra may have believed there was one God, but it's only implied in the Gathas, he says. And that's different from religious traditions that have as their central declaration that there is only one God.

And, just to set the record straight, the expression "Thus spoke Zarathustra" (from the title of the book by Friedrich Nietzsche) "has nothing to do with what we're talking about," says Schwartz, who adds that people mix up the two all the time. Nietzsche's is a fictionalized Zarathustra — whose name is spelled close enough to make it confusing. And, while Nietzsche's protagonist stands apart from traditional morality, the historical Zarathushtra preached free will and the choice of good over evil. It was this ethical dualism that affected the history of religious thought.

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