Note 4 — Chapter VIII · The Book of Proverbs and the Avesta.

Among the cultured Jews, just before our era, there was a recognition of the equality of men, as is seen in the Wisdom of Solomon vii. 1, “I myself am a mortal man, like to all, and the offspring of him that was first made of the earth.” Solomon ascribes his superiority only to the divine gift of wisdom. This idea of human equality was in the preaching of John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 9)—probably a Parsi heretic, at any rate an apostle of purifying water and fire—and it underlay the title of Jesus, “Son of Man.” That in Armaîti there was a conception of a humanity not represented by race but by character and culture will appear by a comparison with the Vedic Aramati, a bride of Agni (Fire) to whom she is mythologically related, on the one hand, and on the other to the spirit of the earth who came to the assistance of Buddha. This story, related in many forms, is that when the evil Mâra, having tempted Buddha in vain, brought his hosts to terrify him, all friends forsook him, and no angel came to help him, but the spirit of the earth, which he had watered, arose as a fair woman, who from her long hair wrung out the water Buddha had bestowed which became a flood and swept away the evil host. Watering the Earth is especially mentioned in the Avesta as that which makes her rejoice, and marks the holy man.