320 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix 



for granted, as a matter of common knowledge; 

 and it is easy to gather from these sources a 

 series of propositions, which only need arrange- 

 ment to form a complete system. 



In this system, Man is considered to be a 

 duality formed of a spiritual element, the soul; 

 and a corporeal 1 element, the body. And this 

 duality is repeated in the Universe, which consists 

 of a corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated 

 by a spiritual world. The former consists of the 

 earth, as its principal and central constituent, with 

 the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the 

 earth is the air, and below is the watery abyss. 

 Whether the heaven, which is conceived to be 

 above the air, and the hell in, or below, the sub- 

 terranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or 

 incorporeal is not clear. f However this may be, 

 the heaven and the air, the earth and the abyss, 

 are peopled by innumerable beings analogous in 

 nature to the spiritual element in man, and these 

 spirits are of two kinds, good and bad. The chief 

 of the good spirits, infinitely superior to all the 

 others, and their creator, as well as the creator of 

 the corporeal world and of the bad spirits, is God. 



1 It is by no means to be assumed that "spiritual" and "cor- 

 poreal " are exact equivalents of " immaterial " and " material " 

 in the minds of ancient speculators on these topics. The 

 "spiritual body" of the risen dead (1 Cor. xv.) is not the 

 "natural" " flesh and blood " body. Paul does not teach the 

 resurrection of the body in the ordinary sense of the word 

 "body"; a fact, often overlooked, but pregnant with many 

 consequences. 



