bios hemon holos allo ouden
en ei me thanatos]). But perhaps, in no other point, with the exception
of the [Greek: anastasis sarkos] has the religious conception remained
so tenacious as in this and it decidedly prevailed, especially in the
epoch with which we are now dealing. Its tenacity may be explained,
among other things, by the living impression of the polytheism that
surrounded the communities on every side. Even where the national gods
were looked upon as dead idols--and that was perhaps the rule, see
Praed. Petri. I. c, 2 Clem. 3. 1, Didache, 6--one could not help
assuming that there were mighty demons operative behind them, as
otherwise the frightful power of idolatry could not be explained. But on
the other hand, even a calm reflection and a temper unfriendly to all
religious excess must have welcomed the assumption of demons who sought
to rule the world and man. For by means of this assumption which was
wide-spread even among the Greeks, humanity seemed to be unburdened, and
the presupposed capacity for redemption could therefore be justified in
its widest range. From the assumption that the need of redemption was
altogether due to ignorance and mortality there was but one step, or
little more than one step, to the assumption that the need of redemption
was grounded in a condition of man for which he was not responsible,
that is, in the flesh. But this step which would have led either to
dualism (heretical Gnosis) or to the abolition of the distinction
between natural and moral, was not taken within the main body of the
Church. The eschatological series of ideas with its thesis that death
evil and sin entered into humanity at a definite historical moment when
the demons took possession of the world drew a limit which was indeed
overstepped at particular points but was in the end respected. We have
therefore the remarkable fact that, on the one hand, early Christian
(Jewish) eschatology called forth and maintained a disposition in which
the Kingdom of God, and that of the world, (Kingdom of the devil) were
felt to be absolutely opposed (practical dualism), while, on the other
hand, it rejected theoretic dualism. Redemption through Christ, however,
was conceived in the eschatological Apocalyptic series of ideas as
essentially something entirely in the future, for the power of the devil
was not broken, but rather increased (or it was virtually broken in
believers and increased in unbelievers), by the first advent