However righteousness has been corrupted over the ages by religious interpretation. There is nothing wrong with the word religion.
Religion is just the adoration or the seeking of the truth.
But because mankind plays with many different viewpoints as far as religiosity goes, it seems that they have a problem choosing a comfort zone. The human mind today has to choose between all of the different religions and to try somehow to form a logical opinion within themselves. Over the generations coming into your Persian Empire, at times there was a great tendency and urge to over create and to spend too much time reviewing a concept instead of actually motivating and doing the concept. Coming into the Roman Empire mankind had the tendency through fear and through that Roman power to fear the concept that Christ and John the Baptist had introduced. Because of that Era and the fear of misinterpretation and being castigated by the Romans, allegories and parables were used.