Yet only in the Avesta is this great principle of evil set forth in full antagonism against the powers of light and love.  And probably from Persia, after the captivity, this view of Satan entered into Jewish theology.  In the Old Testament, indeed, where Satan or the Devil as a proper name only occurs four times[404], in all which cases he is a subordinate angel, the true Devil does not appear.  In the Apocrypha he is said (Wisdom ii. 24) to have brought death into the world.  The New Testament does not teach a doctrine of Satan, or the Devil, as something new and revealed then for the first time, but assumes a general though vague belief in such a being.  This belief evidently existed among the Jews when Christ came.  It as evidently was not taught in the Old Testament.  The inevitable inference is that it grew up in the Jewish mind from its communication with the Persian dualism.

But though the doctrine of a Devil is no essential part of Christianity[405], the reality and power of evil is fully recognized in the New Testament and in the teachings of the Church.  Indeed, in the doctrine of everlasting punishment and of an eternal hell, it has been carried to a dangerous extreme.  The Divine sovereignty is seriously infringed and invaded by such a view.  If any outlying part of the universe continues in a state of permanent rebellion, God is not the absolute sovereign.  But wickedness is rebellion.  If any are to continue eternally in hell, it is because they continue in perpetual wickedness; that is, the rebellion against God will never be effectually suppressed.  Only when every knee bows, and every tongue confesses that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father; only when truth and love have subdued all enemies by converting them into friends, is redemption complete and the universe at peace.

Now, Christianity (in spite of the illogical doctrine of everlasting punishment) has always inspired a faith in the redeeming power of love to conquer all evil.  It has taught that evil can be overcome by good.  It asserts truth to be more powerful than error, right than wrong.  It teaches us in our daily prayer to expect that God’s kingdom shall come, and his will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  It therefore fulfils the truth in the great dualisms of the past by its untiring hope of a full redemption from all sin and all evil.

Sec. 5.  Christianity and the Religions of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

The Religion of Egypt.  This system unfolded the truth of the Divine in this world, of the sacredness of bodily organization, and the descent of Deity into the ultimate parts of his creation.  Its defect was its inability to combine with this an open spiritualism.  It had not the courage of its opinions, so far as they related to the divine unity, spirituality, and eternity.

Christianity also accepts the doctrine of God, present in nature, in man, in the laws of matter, in the infinite variety of things.  But it adds to this the elevated spiritualism of a monotheistic religion, and so accepts the one and the all, unity and variety, substance and form, eternity and time, spirit and body, as filled with God and manifesting him.