"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 v. 2, he 'called their name Adam'), you are the ancestry of the world, and you are created the best of Armaîti (the Earth) by me." (West's translation. Sacred Books of the East. Vol. V., p. 54, n. 2.) The word for Earth in Proverb 26 is adamah, and in the Septuagint (various reading) it is actually translated Armaith,--Armaîti's very name. We may thus find in Proverb 26 (viii.) the idea of Omar Khayyám, "Man is the whole creation's summary."