EVIL IX THE WOELD. 163 



which distract the Christian world and divide Christian 

 Churches. Why should a matter thus momentous be 

 put before us as it comes through the misty medium of 

 Manichajan or other Oriental philosophy ? 



Are there really Scriptural texts so wholly free 

 from allegory or metaphor as to compel belief in a 

 Being the personal author of evil ? If there are, then 

 should the whole of our theology be remodelled, for 

 our conceptions of God and of his relations to man 

 are wholly altered by such belief. If there are not, 

 then ought theology boldly to declare the negative. 

 Nothing can be more destructive of intelligent faith than 

 those vague terms and traditions, which obscure the 

 truth, but which we fear either to define or discard. 



Probably very few intelligent persons do really 

 believe in a personal Satan, having power or even per- 

 mission to contravene what was designed for good in 

 the world. I have often put the question to men of 

 deep religious thought, and have found either that it 

 had never definitely occurred to them, or been per- 

 plexed to their minds by the phraseology of pulpits as 

 well as of common speech. It has been said, and 

 truly, that in England the great poem of Milton has 

 done much towards giving personality and its attributes 

 to Satan. I have known myself some curious instances 

 of this unconscious derivation of opinion. 



I have looked with some attention to the use of the 

 word ^arai'as as it occurs in the New Testament, taking 

 Griesbach's text. It must be allowed that many of 

 these passages (some thirty-two in number) will bear, 

 others even seem to press for, a personal interpretation. 



M 2 



