While both of my Mystics were historically and religiously significant, they also lived a very long time ago and their affects on modern society and institutions is pretty limited.
John the Baptist is part of the foundation from which Christ draws legitimacy. according to messianic prophecy in the old testament the prophet Elijah would precede the coming messiah. in Mathew 11:14 Jesus says "14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.". for Jesus Christ to be the old testament messiah he had to fill out all of the requirements of the prophesies. Apart from that John Had a lasting affect on the early church. Johns death is one of the first recorded cases of martyrdom in the bible. he is beheaded by Herod the tetrarch of Jerusalem. there are different traditions on what happened to his head. The orthodox claim it was found and reburied on the mount of olives several times and celebrate the feast of john the baptist to celebrate its reburial. In christian art work the emotional scaring resulted in john the baptist death being portrayed frequently with his head on a silver platter, which is where we get that phrase.
Zoroaster's main legacy is the effect his religion had on the people in Iran. As I have said previously Zoroaster was against religion as a polarizing and political tool, and it is because of this aversion to religious politics that Zoroastrians were very tolerant of others and outsiders. because o this the Persian empire was incredibly tolerant and allowed conquered people to worship as they pleased. even after the Muslim conquest of Iran it remained a generally tolerant nation. up until the 1970's Iran was the one of the most progressive nations in the middle east. even now with a theocracy in power Muslims, Jews and Zoroastrians in Iran still practice zoroastrian holidays and religious practices. some people even practice them out of protest to the authoritarian Muslim regime.
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