AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 453 



But, whether the Gospels contain trustworthy statements about 

 this and other alleged historical facts or not, it is quite certain 

 that from them, taken together with the other books of the New 

 Testament, we may collect a pretty complete exposition of that 

 theory of the spiritual world which was held by both Nazarenes 

 and Christians ; and which was undoubtedly supposed by them to 

 be fully sanctioned by Jesus, though it is just as clear that they 

 did not imagine it contained any revelation by him of something 

 heretofore unknown. If the pneumatological doctrine which per- 

 vades the whole New Testament is nowhere systematically stated, 

 it is everywhere assumed. The writers of the Gospels and of the 

 Acts take it for granted, as a matter of common knowledge ; and 

 it is easy to gather from these sources a series of propositions, 

 which only need arrangement 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 * 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 it the watery abyss. Wheth- 

 er the heaven, which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell 

 in, or below, the subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal 

 or incorporeal is not clear. 



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. His residence is 

 heaven, where he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good 

 spirits ; his angels, or messengers, and the executors of his will 

 throughout the universe. 



On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Satan — the 

 devil par excellence. He and his company of demons are free to 

 roam through all parts of the universe, except heaven. These bad 

 spirits are far superior to man in power and subtlety, and their 

 whole energies are devoted to bringing physical and moral evils 

 upon him, and to thwarting, so far as their power goes, the benev- 

 olent intentions of the Supreme Being. In fact, the souls and 

 bodies of men form both the theatre and the prize of an incessant 

 warfare between the good and the evil spirits — the powers of 

 light and the powers of darkness. By leading Eve astray, Satan 

 brought sin and death upon mankind. As the gods of the hea- 



* It is by no means to be assumed that " spiritual " and " corporeal " are exact equiva- 

 lents of " immaterial " and " material " in the minds of ancient speculators on these topics. 



