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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...angel, having fallen by pride and arrogance, envying God's creation Adv. har., No. 40). He agrees, however, with the gnostics, in that he maintains that the Devil had claims upon man because of man's sin. Jesus, A Ship Symbolising A Christian Gem With A Gnostic Gem. The Church. Serpent. however, having paid the debt of mankind, has the power to redeem the souls of men from the clutches of the Devil who, by having treated a sinless man as a sinner, became now himself a debtor of mankind. This juridical theory of the death of Jesus and his relation to the Devil was further elaborated by Origen. According to Origen the sacrifice of Jesus is not rendered to make an atonement to God or satisfy his feeling of justice (which is the Protestant conception), but to pay off the Devil. Jesus is, as it were, a bait for the Devil. Satan imagines he must destroy Jesus, but having sueceeded in killing him, finds out to his unspeakable regret that he has been outwitted by the Lord. God had set a trap, and the Devil was foolish enough to allow himself to be caught. Manes, a man educated in the Zoroastrian faith, endeavored to found a universal religion through the synthesis of all the religions he knew; and because Manicheism, as this view is called, contains many Christian elements, it is commonly regarded as a Christian or a gnostic sect, but it was strongly denounced as heretical by St. Augustine. Manes taught the Persian dualism, but St. Augustine, who formulated the orthodox Christian doctrine denying the independent existence of evil, explains the presence of sin in the world by the free will with which Adam was endowed at creation, and regards evil as a means to an end in God's plan of education. Christianity triumphed over paganism, and it did so by embodying in its ...

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