Respecting the Holy Ghost, Irenæus declares that he was with God before all created things(239), and (as we have seen) that he was the Wisdom of God, whose operation was the operation of God(240); that he is rightly called Lord(241); and he affirms that the bread of eternal life, which is the Word, is also the Spirit of the Father(242). He speaks of him as coming with power to give entrance unto life to all nations, and to open to them the new Covenant, and as offering to the Father on the day of Pentecost the first fruits of all nations(243). He affirms that man, at his creation, had the image of God in the flesh, the likeness in the soul by the communication of the Divine Spirit(244). He implies that, since the fall, man has lost the Spirit, and consequently the life of his soul; he asserts that he remains carnal until he recovers the Spirit of God(245), and then he becomes again a living soul, and has in him the seed of eternal life(246); that the Spirit we receive here is a pledge of a fuller portion(247); and that at the resurrection the souls and bodies of the just will be quickened by the Spirit in union with them, and their bodies become spiritual bodies(248), and capable of immortality. This is the substance of the doctrine of Irenæus on the Trinity, and it will be seen that it is identical with that of the Church of England, and that his way of carrying it out throws light on important passages of Holy Writ; and if there had been nothing of interest to us in this Treatise beyond these clear and direct testimonies to the belief of the Church of that age on the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, we might well be glad that it was written and handed down to our times. CHAPTER V. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. This being the subject out of which the Gnostic theories appear to have arisen (there being so many attempts to account for it, without in any wise bringing it into connexion with the Supreme Being), it might, perhaps, have been expected that Irenæus should have endeavoured to throw some light upon it. He has, however, taken a much wiser course. He has altogether declined making it clear, and thereby escaped the danger of inventing another heresy. He grants, indeed, that there is sufficient ground for inquiring why God has allowed evil and imperfection to exist; but he declares that all things were intended by the Almighty to be created in the very state and with the very qualities with which they were created(249). He will not allow that subsequent dispensations were really intended to remedy the imperfections of prior ones, because that would be to accuse God himself of not understanding at first the effects of his works(250).