Note 5 — Chapter XVIII · The Last Solomon.

In the “Wisdom of Solomon” (xviii.) there is a complete picture of the two opposing Destroyers. The divine destroyer (“thine Almighty Word”) leaps down with his sword and slays the firstborn of Egypt; the antagonist Destroyer begins the same kind of work among the Israelites in Egypt, but Moses by prayer and the “propitiation of incense” sets himself “against the Wrath” and overcomes him,—“not with physical strength, nor force of arms, but with a word.” The incense used by Moses to put the demon to flight recalls the “perfume” used by Tobit, on the advice of the angel, to put to flight Asmodeus; and Asmodeus is notoriously the Persian Aêshma, a name meaning “Wrath,” who occupies so large space in the Parsî scriptures.5 The especial antagonist of Aêshma “of the wounding spear,” is Sraosha, “the incarnate Word, a mighty-speared god.” (Farvardin Yast, 85.) As Moses overcomes “the Wrath” “with a word,” Zoroaster is given a form of words to conquer Aêshma (“Praise to Armaîti, the propitious!”) and the Vendîdâd says, “The fiend becomes weaker and weaker at every one [repetition] of those words.” The Zamyâd Yast says, “The Word of falsehood smites, but the Word of truth shall smite it.” Aêshma is the child of Ahriman, the Deceiver of the World, and a Parsî would recognize him in the declaration ascribed to Jesus, “The devil is a liar and so is his father.” (John viii. 44.)