. The history of the devil and the idea of evil; from the earliest times to the present day . -, tookcompassion on man and sent the serpent to induce himto eat of the tree of knowledge so that he might escapethe bondage of ignorance in which Yahveh, the demi-urge, tried to hold him. GREECE AND ITALY. 233 The serpent appears on many gnostic gems and isnever missing in the Mithras monuments. Frequently itis found on Christian devices where it is sometimes diffi-cult to interpret it as the representative of evil. Irenseus, an adversary of the gnostic view, replacedthe demiurge by the Devil, whom
. The history of the devil and the idea of evil; from the earliest times to the present day . -, tookcompassion on man and sent the serpent to induce himto eat of the tree of knowledge so that he might escapethe bondage of ignorance in which Yahveh, the demi-urge, tried to hold him. GREECE AND ITALY. 233 The serpent appears on many gnostic gems and isnever missing in the Mithras monuments. Frequently itis found on Christian devices where it is sometimes diffi-cult to interpret it as the representative of evil. Irenseus, an adversary of the gnostic view, replacedthe demiurge by the Devil, whom he regards as a rebelangel, having fallen by pride and arrogance, envyingGods creation {Adv. //or., No. 40). He agrees, how-ever, with the gnostics, in that he maintains that theDevil had claims upon man because of mans sin. Jesus,. A Ship SymbolisingTHE Church. A Christian Gem withSerpent, A Gnostic Gem. however, having paid the debt of mankind, has the powerto redeem the souls of men from the clutches of the Devilwho, by having treated a sinless man as a sinner, becamenow himself a debtor of mankind. This juridical theory of the death of Jesus and hisrelation to the Devil was further elaborated by to Origen the sacrifice of Jesus is not renderedto make an atonement to God or satisfj^ his feeling ofjustice (which is the Protestant conception), but to payoff the Devil. Jesus is, as it were, a bait for the imagines he must destroy Jesus, but having sue- 234 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. ceeded in killing Wm, finds out to his unspeakable regretthat he has been outwitted by the Lord. God had set atrap, and the Devil was foolish enough to allow himself tobe caught. Manes, a man educated in the Zoroastrian faith, en-deavored to found a universal religion through the syn-thesis of all the relig
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