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Rh CHAP. that they had ahvays been, and must for ever continue to be, malig- nant devils ; ^ but unless their horrible fellowship was speedily to come to an end, they must be under the rule of some king, and this king they found in the Semitic Satan. Of the theology which sprung from this root it is enough to say that it endowed the king of the fallen angels with the powers of omnipresence and omniscience, and made him so far a conqueror in his great struggle with the author of his being as to succeed in wresting for ever out of the hands of God all but an insignificant fraction of the whole race of mankind. The victory of the Almighty God could not extend either to the destruction of Satan and his subordinate demons, or to the rescue of the souls whom he had enticed to their ruin j and if power be measured by the multitude of subjects, his defeat by Michael could scarcely be regarded as much impairing his magnificent success. Of the effect of this belief on the moral and social developement of Christendom, it is unnecessary to speak : but it must not be forgotten that this particular developement of the Jewish demonology was the natural outgrowth of passionate convictions animating a scanty band in an almost hopeless struggle against a society thoroughly corrupt and impure. It was almost impossible for any whose eyes were opened to its horrors to look upon it as anything but a loathsome mass which could never be cleansed from its defilement. What could they see but a vast gulf separating the few who were the soldiers of Christ from the myriads who thronged together under the standard of his adversary ? Hence grew up by a process which cannot much excite our wonder that severe theology, which, known especially as that of Augustine, represented the Christian Church as an ark floating on a raging sea, open only to those who received the sacrament of baptism, and shut both here and hereafter even to infants dying before it could be administered. It was inevitable that under such conditions the image of Satan should more and more fill the theological horizon for the few whose enthusiasm and convictions were sincere. But these conditions were changed with the conversion of tribes, in whom the thought of one malignant spirit marring and undoing the work of God had never been awakened ; and although henceforth the teaching of the priesthood might continue to be as severe as that of Augustine or ' The Christian missionaries were und siindlich, nicht als absolut nichtig further conscious that their own tliau- schilderte : die Wiinder des Christen maturgy might be called into question, erscheinen dadurch glaubhafter, dass if that of the old creed were treated as auch dem althergelirachten Heidcntlium mere imposture or illusion. " Die neue etwas iibernatiirliches gelasscn wurde." Lehre konnte leichter keimen und — Grimm, 757 wurzeln wenn sie die alte als gehiissig