239 



World-rulers : Ormuzd, tlie source of Good ; Ahriraanes, the 

 source of Evil.* These are in continual conflict^ but Good will 

 finally triumph. Mani (about A.D. 240) combined this Zoro- 

 astrian doctrine with a corrupt form of Christianity, and gave 

 rise to the famous sect of the Manichees. 



Another explanation of the origin of Evil was to ascribe it 

 to matter as opposed to spirit. Matter, according to this view, 

 is too untractable to obey the behests of spirit, and from its 

 imperfections and shortcomings it gives rise to all kinds of evil. 

 Another solution is that of Pantheism which practically ignores 

 Moral Evil. All so-called individual beings are but transient 

 embodiments of the Universal Impersonal Existence, when it 

 submits to the conditions of time and space. All actions 

 alike are really Divine, and it is absurd to speak of them as 

 good and bad. Logical Pantheists are thus driven to ex- 

 tenuate Moral Evil as much as possible, to speak of it as 

 imperfection or ignorance. As many of the modern exponents 

 of Pantheistic or semi-Pantheistic views are widely read from 

 the originality of their ideas, or poetical charm of their style, 

 it is well to remember that they are all liable to this grave 

 charge of under-rating the power and the effects of Moral Evil. 



11. We now come to Christian writers. The Christian 

 Revelation presupposes the existence of Moral Evil in the 

 world, for it claims to be essentially the Divine remedy for 

 that evil. But it is silent on the mysterious question of its- 

 origin. Christian philosophers, nevertheless, have attempted 

 to answer it, and in so doing have produced much valuable 

 speculation. Origen, Augustine, and Eckhard, may be taken 

 as representing — the first, the Eastern Church ; the second, 

 the Western ; and the third. Mediaeval Mysticism. In making 

 these quotations I do not, of course, accept the responsibility 

 of every statement contained in them, but adduce them as 

 specimens of philosophic thinking. 



Origen (born A.D. 185, died 254) has the following passages 

 bearing upon the subject of the origin of evilf: — "The 

 goodness of God could never remain inactive, nor His omni- 

 potence be without objects for His government : hence the 

 creation of the world cannot have been begun in any given 

 moment of time, but must be conceived as without beginning. 

 .... God did not find matter already in existence, and then 

 merely communicate shape and form to it, but He Himself 



* It is now denied that this Dualism was part of the original teaching of 

 Zoroaster, but if it is an additional development, it is at any rate one of 

 great antiquity. Its date, however, does not affect the argument in the text. 



t Ueberweg, Hist. Phil., vol. i. p. 217. 



