II THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 51 



' Giving up the belief in witchcraft was in effect 

 giving up the Bible,' and it may be added that giving 

 up belief in the devil is, practically, giving up belief in 

 the atonement the central doctrine of the Christian 

 faith. To this the early Christians would have sub- 

 scribed : so, also, would the great Augustine, who said 

 that * nothing is to be accepted save on the authority 

 of Scripture, since greater is that authority than all 

 the powers of the human mind ' ; so would all who 

 have followed him in ancient confessions of the 

 faith. It is only the amorphous form of that faith 

 which, lingering on, anaemic and boneless, denies 

 by evasion. 



But they who abandon belief in maleficent 

 demons and witches ; as also, for this follows, in 

 beneficent agents, as angels ; land themselves in 

 serious dilemma. For to this are such committed. 

 If Jesus, who came ' that he might destroy the works 

 of the devil,' and who is reported, among other 

 proofs of his divine ministry, to have cast out 

 demons from * possessed ' human beings, and, in 

 one case, to have permitted a crowd of the infernal 

 agents to enter into a herd of swine ; if he verily 

 believed that he actually did these things ; and if 

 it be true that the belief is a superstition limited to 

 the ignorant or barbaric mind ; what value can be 

 attached to any statement that Jesus is reported to 

 have made about a spiritual world ? 



Here then (i) in the attitude of the early Christians 

 towards all mundane affairs as of no moment com- 

 pared with those affecting their souls' salvation ; (2) 

 in the assumed authority of Scripture as a full 

 revelation of both earthly and heavenly things, and 



