The number of mythical elements woven into this ascetic dualism is striking. Woman was the temptress most to be feared; the daughters of Eve were considered the most powerful instruments Satan had at his command. It was even debated whether she had a soul. It was even whispered that a woman guarded the gates of Hell. Again, Satan was pictured as a demon leading the unwary astray by the desires of this world. Ethics was an affair of external fighting for the souls of men. The whole setting was mythical and supernaturalistic and full of picture-thinking.
We have already referred to the doctrine of original sin. This doctrine was taken up by St. Augustine who had been a Manichean. Pauline theology, Augustinianism, and Manicheism have much in common. They are all instances of what may be called mythological metaphysics. The dogma is, that, left to his own devices, man tends to take the path of sin. He is, moreover, alienated from God, who, because of his perfection, cannot condone imperfection and demands an atonement which cannot be made by man himself. Hence, the need arises for a savior to mediate between man and God. What a construction is this in which myth, rabbinical theology and pagan dualistic cosmologies are drawn together to furnish the setting for a juridical drama! How can those who accept the teaching of modern science and realize the more subjective and personal spirit of modern ethics conserve any portion of this strange creation of past ages? The idea of evolution, as applied to both nature and man, undermines the whole fantastic drama. Man has arisen painfully from a brutish condition, instead of falling from a perfect state. The contrast between flesh and spirit can no longer be taken literally as corresponding to a sort of physical division of the universe into spheres of good and evil which can have no commerce with one another. This is ethical poetry which is not sufficiently aware that it is poetry. Instead of seeking to re-interpret the belief in an external, sacrificial savior, mediating between God and man in vague, mystically symbolic language which suggests a depth it does not possess, the sensible thing is to drop the whole outlook frankly, as outgrown, and as having essentially lost its meaning. We saw that Jesus, himself, would probably { 158} not have comprehended its intricacies, and certainly would not have accepted it as true of his own mission. Instead, it represents the theosophic speculations of the Ancient World. So long as the thinker toys with these imaginative speculations which have no direct foundation in the knowledge and experience of to-day, so long will he live in a mental fog unable to see the really pressing social and ethical problems of the present.