a happy
state, but that not having followed the light of conscience, which in
accordance with the intention of its author should have guided him along
the path of virtue, he has become wicked, and has deserved that God the
supremely good should make him feel the effects of his anger. It is
therefore not God who is the cause of moral evil: but he is the cause of
physical evil, that is, of the punishment of moral evil. And this
punishment, far from being incompatible with the supremely good principle,
of necessity emanates from that one of its attributes, I mean its justice,
which is not less essential to it than its goodness. This answer, the most
reasonable that Melissus can give, is fundamentally good and sound, but it
may be disputed by something more specious and more dazzling. For indeed
Zoroaster objects that the infinitely good principle ought to have created
man not only without actual evil, but also without the inclination towards
evil; that God, having foreseen sin with all its consequences, ought to
have prevented it; that he ought to have impelled man to moral good, and
not to have allowed him any force for tending towards crime.' That is quite
easy to say, but it is not practicable if one follows the principles [221]
of order: it could not have been accomplished without perpetual miracles.
Ignorance, error and malice follow one another naturally in animals made as
we are: should this species, then, have been missing in the universe? I
have no doubt but that it is too important there, despite all its
weaknesses, for God to have consented to its abolition.

156. M. Bayle, in the article entitled 'Paulicians' inserted by him in his
_Dictionary_, follows up the pronouncements he made in the article on the
Manichaeans. According to him (p. 2330, lit. H) the orthodox seem to admit
two first principles, in making the devil the originator of sin. M. Becker,
a former minister of Amsterdam, author of the book entitled _The World
Bewitched_, has made use of this idea in order to demonstrate that one
should not assign such power and authority to the Devil as would allow of
his comparison with God. Therein he is right: but he pushes the conclusions
too far. And the author of the book entitled [Greek: Apokatastasis Panton]
believes that if the Devil had never been vanquished and despoiled, if he
had always kept his prey, if the title of invincible had belonged to him,
that would have done injury to the glory of God. But i