to supersede the Mosaic ritual and the ministry of angels; He will come again to bring those who are far off into renewed fellowship with His Father and theirs. On the other hand, the recognition of Satan, the evil angel, marks an equally great change from the theology of the book of Samuel. The primitive Israelite religion had not yet reached the stage at which the origin and existence of moral evil became an urgent problem of religious thought; men had not yet realised the logical consequences of the doctrine of Divine unity and omnipotence. Not only was material evil traced to Jehovah as the expression of His just wrath against sin, but “morally pernicious acts were quite frankly ascribed to the direct agency of God.”(319) God hardens the heart of Pharaoh and the Canaanites; Saul is instigated by an evil spirit from Jehovah to make an attempt upon the life of David; Jehovah moves David to number Israel; He sends forth a lying spirit that Ahab’s prophets may prophesy falsely and entice him to his ruin.(320) The Divine origin of moral evil implied in these passages is definitely stated in the book of Proverbs: “Jehovah hath made everything for its own end, yea even the wicked for the day of evil”; in Lamentations, “Out of the mouth of the Most High cometh there not evil and good?” and in the book of Isaiah, “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.”(321) The ultra-Calvinism, so to speak, of earlier Israelite religion was only possible so long as its full significance was not understood. An emphatic assertion of the absolute sovereignty of the one God was necessary as a protest against polytheism, and later on against dualism as well. For practical purposes men’s faith needed to be protected by the assurance that God worked out His purposes in and through human wickedness. The earlier attitude of the Old Testament towards moral evil had a distinct practical and theological value. But the conscience of Israel could not always rest in this view of the origin of evil. As the standard of morality was raised, and its obligations were more fully insisted on, as men shrank from causing evil themselves and from the use of deceit and violence, they hesitated more and more to ascribe to Jehovah what they sought to avoid themselves. And yet no easy way of escape presented itself. The facts remained; the temptation to do evil was part of the punishment of the sinner and of the discipline of the saint. It was impossible to deny that sin had its place in God’s government of the world; and in view of men’s growing reverence and moral sensitiveness, it was becoming almost equally impossible to admit without qualification or explanation that God was Himself the Author of evil. Jewish thought found itself face to face with the dilemma against which the human intellect vainly beats its wings, like a bird against the bars of its cage.