When we glance a little more closely at the Christian tradition, we find that the popular answer to the problem of evil is by no means unambiguous. To explain the existence of evil by the agency of the devil (Satan, Ahriman) is a straightforward answer, quite in accordance with the appeal to personal agency so characteristic of religion, but it does not harmonize with the ethical monotheism which Christianity inherited. The query will not down, Why does this omnipotent and ethically perfect deity permit such a being to exist to work havoc amongst his children? Even upon a casual examination, it becomes evident that there are many strands of tradition and doctrine in Christianity. There is the classic monotheism of the prophets, and the more polytheistic tendencies of later times, a contrast parallel to the sanity of classic Greece as compared with the flabbiness of Hellenistic times.
In the New Testament, itself, there are many evidences of the acceptance of a dualistic view of the world. Satan is the Prince of this World. We have already pointed out that the writers of the gospels think of Jesus as casting out demons which have infested the bodies of men and women and made them sick. Yet, strange to say, we are told that not a sparrow falls to the ground without God's consent.
This dualistic strand of thinking dominated during { 156} the Middle Ages. The world is given over to the devil for him to work his will upon it. Here we have both a cause and an effect of the pessimism of the times. For the early Christians, society was corrupt and filled with abominations; the only sure way to achieve salvation was to flee from its lure to deserts and monasteries, there to purge the soul of fleshly desires. No one has painted the situation more keenly and unflinchingly than Anatole France in _Thais_. Humanity was sick. A strong wave of asceticism spread from the East to the West and carried with it doctrines based on the metaphysical extension of the contrast between light and darkness, good and evil. Matter is evil in its very nature and leagues itself with those instincts in the soul which come from its contamination with flesh. The taint of original sin is deepened by the grossness of the material out of which man's earthly tabernacle is made. The body with its passions plays double traitor to the soul. Only by prayer, purification, fasting, and the grace of God can the son of corruption save his soul alive for the heavenly kingdom among the stars.