The English Moral Plays 321 
and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.”! Clearly 
the spiritual life meant to Paul a struggle not unlike the clashing 
of foes in battle. 
The vivid picture that Paul here drew of militant Christianity 
was never forgotten. It was very plainly in the mind of that 
vigorous controversialist and ardent reformer, Tertullian, as he 
attacked the impurities of the Roman theater.2. “Would you have 
also fightings and wrestlings? Well, of these there is no lacking, 
and they are not of slight account. Behold unchastity overcome 
by chastity, perfidy slain by faithfulness, cruelty stricken by com- 
passion, impudence thrown into the shade by modesty; these are 
the contests we have among us, and in these we win our crowns.” 
With a still more lifelike personification and a more specific in- 
dication of the nature of the assault, this same conception was 
handled by Tertullian’s follower, Cyprian. “What else in the 
world,” he wrote, “than a battle against the devil is daily carried 
on, than a struggle against his darts and weapons in constant 
conflicts? Our warfare is with avarice, with immodesty, with 
anger, with ambition; our diligent and toilsome wrestle with carnal 
vices, with enticements of the world. The mind of man besieged, 
and in every quarter invested with the onsets of the devil, scarcely 
in each point meets the attack, scarcely resists it. If avarice is 
prostrated, lust springs up. If lust is overcome, ambition takes its 
place. If ambition is despised, anger exasperates, pride puffs up, 
wine-bibbing entices, envy breaks concord, jealousy cuts friendship ; 
you are constrained to curse, which the divine law forbids; you 
are compelled to swear, which is not lawful.” ® 
Of almost equal significance is the following excerpt from the 
Divine Institutes of Lactantius, the great churchman of the third 
and fourth centuries: 
God, who created men to this warfare, desired that they should 
stand prepared in battle array, and with minds keenly intent should 
watch against the stratagems of open attacks of our single enemy, 
who, as is the practice of skilful and experienced generals, endeav- 
ours to ensnare us by various arts, directing his rage according 
to the nature and disposition of each. For he infuses into some 

1 Eph. 6. 11-17. 
2 34. See Thompson, Controversy between the Puritans and the Stage, 
13—16. 
% On the Mortahty, 455. See also Ephraem, the Syrian, De Pugna 
Carnis, 5. 2382—34. 
