The fatal and subtle character of the detective Holy Spirit is imported into this Epistle from the "Wisdom of Solomon" (i. 6), though not so distinctly personified. The sin afterwards called "unpardonable" is here a sin against Christ for which repentance, not pardon, is impossible. We may perhaps find in some of the expressions germs of the legend of Judas. "As touching those who were once enlightened, and tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age that is come, and fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, seeing they individually impale the Son of God afresh and put him to open shame" (vi. 5, 6). The believers are "not of them that shrink back into perdition" (x. 39); and they are warned to look carefully "whether there be any man that falleth back from the grace of God,... like Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright" (xii. 15, 16). The words "tasted," "perdition," "sold," might start a legend of the betrayal, first alluded to by Paul (if 1 Cor. xi. 23 be genuine, which is doubtful), though had the legend of Judas then existed this writer would naturally have alluded to him along with Esau. This Epistle is the nursery of the titles of Christ; he is Apostle, Son of God, Son of Man, Great Shepherd, Captain of Salvation, Mediator, Great High Priest; and here alone is found the now familiar endearing phrase "Our Lord." These titles represent the functions of different beings in the Avesta. The conception of the work of Jesus on earth is largely Zoroastrian. The Majesty on high has a colony and a people on earth, which otherwise is under the supremacy of the Evil One. As we have seen the Avestan definitions of Ahuramazda and Angra Mainyu, "the Living and the Not Living," are reflected in the phrases of this Epistle,--the "Power of Imperishable Life" (vii. 16) and the "Power of Death" (ii. 14). Ahuramazda, when his "habitable earth" was prepared, brought into it his "first-born," Yima, and wished him to propagate the divine law which should destroy the power of Angra Mainyu on earth and confine him in the underworld. Yima replied, "I was not born, I was not taught, to be the preacher and the bearer of thy law." He engaged, however, to enlarge and nourish the garden of God on earth, of which he was king, and entitled "the good shepherd." He obtained from the Holy Spirit, Anâhita, the powers thus enumerated in Abân Yast 26: "He begged of her a boon, saying, 'Grant me this, O good, most beneficent Ardvi Sûra Anâhita, that I may become the sovereign lord of all countries, of the dævas [devils] and men, of the Yâtus [sorcerers] and Pairkas [seducing nymphs], of the oppressors [who afflict] the blind and the deaf; and that I may take from the dævas [devils] both riches and welfare, both fatness and flocks, both weal and glory" [hvarenô, "the glory from above which makes the king an earthly god"].