A struggle between good and evil, between God and Satan, between church and paganism, which is carried on with the weapons of miracles by two directly opposed human representatives of these principles, was a theme which must by necessity urge the power of creative imagination into activity, and we find also in one of the oldest monuments of Christian literature[42] a tale of this character. It is Simon Peter, the rock on which the Church is built, who fights there against Simon the magician of Samaria, mentioned in the Acts. When the cities of Asia Minor had witnessed their emulation in miracle-working, the decisive battle was fought out to the end in Rome. In the presence of the assembled people, Simon the magician attempts an ascension into heaven, but falls and breaks his legs because Simon Peter had commanded the evil spirits who were carrying the magician towards the sky to let him drop. This fable appears still further embellished in later ecclesiastical authors. It is soon accompanied by others, such as that of Cyprianus, Theophilus, Militaris, Heliodorus, and many others, who from love of earthly glory abjure Christ and enter into solemn covenants with the devil. In the biography of the holy Basilius, archbishop of Cæsarea and Cappadocia (he was a contemporary of the apostate emperor Julian), there is a story of a young man who had obtained from a heathen sorcerer a letter of recommendation to Satan. When the young man, according to the precept of the magician, had gone to a heathen grave and there taken out the letter, he was suddenly taken up and borne to the place where Satan, surrounded by his angels, sat on a throne. The youth abjured in writing his baptism and swore allegiance to his new master. But after some time the apostate repented and confessed to the holy Basilius what he had done. The bishop prayed for him forty days. When at length the day had come that Satan according to the compact should bear away his victim, the bishop had the young man placed in the midst of his congregation. Satan arrived: a battle between him and the bishop followed--a battle which was carried on with the people stretching forth their hands imploring God for assistance, and was ended when the compact fell from the claws of the fiend, and was torn by the bishop. The before-mentioned Theophilus had likewise pawned his soul to the devil, but the contract was restored to him after urgent supplication, by the holy Virgin, after which, warned by his experience, he led a holy life, and became Saint Theophilus before he closed his eyes. These early legends of compacts between the devil and men end, as we see, with the sinner's salvation; not so the later. If we now remember that it was one of the dogmas proclaimed by the Church that all magical and miraculous arts not performed by the priests in the name of Jesus were wrought by the devil; that he gives his adherents power over nature and that the demons as