viii. 18 may possibly signify the antiquity of the Anthologies when

this Prologue was written.) The scholarly writer of the Prologue had closely studied the ancient proverbs, and occasionally gives good hints for the interpretation of some that puzzle modern translators. Thus Wisdom, in describing herself as "sporting" (viii. 30), indicates the right meaning of x. 23 to be that while the fool finds his sport in mischief, the wise man finds his sport with wisdom. (This proverb may also have suggested the laughter of the "virtuous woman" in xxxi. 25.)

In viii. 22-31, Wisdom becomes more than a personification, and takes her place in cosmogony. This passage, which contains germs of much of our latter-day theology, must be quoted in full, and comparatively studied. Wisdom speaks:

22. Jahveh acquired me in the outset of his way, Before his works, from of old.

23. From eternity was I existent, From the first, before the earth.

24. When no deep seas I was brought forward, When no fountains abounding with water.

25. Before the mountains were fixed, Before the hills, was I brought forward:

26. When he had not fashioned the earth and the fields, And the consummate part of the dust of the world.

27. When he established the heavens, I was there; When he set a boundary on the face of the deep;

28. When he made firm the clouds above; When the fountains of the deep became strong;

29. When he gave to the sea its limit, That the waters should not pass over their coast; When he marked out the foundation pillars of the earth:

30. Then was I near him, as a master builder: And I was his delight continually, Sporting before him at all times;

31. Sporting in the habitable part of his earth, And my delight was with the sons of men.

Let us compare with this picture of Wisdom that of Armaîti, genius of the Earth, in the sacred Zoroastrian books. In the Gâtha Ahunavaiti, 7, it is said: "To succor this life (to increase it) Armaîti came with wealth, and good and true mind: she, the everlasting one, created the material world; but the soul, as to time, the first cause among created beings, was with thee" (Ahura Mazda). Thus, like Wisdom, Armaîti is everlasting: she was not created, but "acquired," by the deity. When Ahura Mazda, as chief of the seven Amesha-spentas, ideally designed the world, she gave it reality, as master-builder, and, like Wisdom, hewed out the foundation pillars he had marked out,--namely, the Seven Karshvares of the earth. The opening lines of Proverbs ix. read almost like a quotation from some Gâtha:

"Wisdom hath builded her house, She hath hewn out her seven pillars."

Like Wisdom, Armaîti was the continual delight of the supreme God. In an ancient Pâli MS., it is said that Zoroaster saw the supreme being in heaven, with Armaîti seated at his side, her hand caressing his neck, and said: "Thou, who art Ahura Mazda, turnest not thy eyes away from her, and she turns not away from thee." Ahura Mazda tells Zoroaster that she is "the house mistress of my heaven, and mother of the creatures." [12] Like Wisdom, Armaîti has joy in the "habitable part" of the earth, and the "sons of men," from whom she receives especial delight ("the greatest joy"), are enumerated in the Vendîdâd, also the places in which she has such delight. They are the faithful who cultivate the earth morally and physically, and the places so watered or drained, and homes "with wife, children, and good herds within."

Armaîti has a daughter, "the good Ashi," whose function is to pass between earth and heaven and bring the heavenly wisdom (Vohu-Mano, "Good Thought") to mankind. The soul of the world thus reaches, and is reached by, heaven, and Armaîti thus becomes a personification of the combined human and superhuman Wisdom ascribed to great men, such as Solomon. At the same time the "sons of men" are all the children of Armaîti, and she finds delight among them. Even the rudest are restrained by her culture. "By the eyes of Armaîti the (demonic) ruffian was made powerless," says Zoroaster. The spirit of the Earth, laughing with her flowers and fruits, survived in Persia the sombre reign of Islam, to sing in the quatrain of Omar Khayyám: "I asked my fair bride--the World--what was her dower: she answered, 'My dower is in the joy of thy heart.'"

"The sons of men" is not an Avestan phrase, for to Armaîti her daughters are as dear as her sons, but we find in the Vendîdâd "the seeds of men and women." These are sprung from those who were selected for preservation in the Vara, or enclosure, of the first man, Yimi, made by direction of the deity, when the evil powers brought fatal winters on the world. The deformed, diseased, wicked, were excluded; the chosen people were those formed of "the best of the earth." From long and prosperous life on earth, the Amesha of immortality, the good angel of death, conducted them to eternal happiness; they are the immortals, children of the demons being mortals. There was something corresponding to this in the Jewish idea of their being a chosen people, as distinguished from the Gentile world (see Deut. xxxii. 8), and no doubt the phrase "sons of men" represented a divine dignity afterwards expressed in the title, "Son of Man." [13]

The Solomonic hymn of Wisdom at the creation (Proverbs viii. 22-31) contains other Avestan phrases. "From eternity was I existent," recalls Zervan akarana, "boundless time," and verse 26, relating to the earth, is still more significant: in it "the sum" has been suggested by the Revisers for (E. V.) "the highest part" (of the earth), but in either rendering it is near to the Avestan phrase, "the best of Armaîti" (Earth). This phrase is reproduced in the Bundahis (xv. 6), where the creator, Ahura Mazda, says to the first pair, "You are men (cf. Genesis