- 154 - God and His eternal goodness and purity through their illusions and bugbears. Fortunate indeed was the Christian who only knew these feelings. For if the beauty of the images and of the people, or the sensual appeal of the spectacles crept into his heart, if man’s latent thirst for blood was aroused in him when the gladiators fought, then he could hear, with horror and dismay, these same Powers of Darkness call to him from the stirrings of his own base instincts, now in the soft tones of flattery, now in wildly seductive tones. He did not only imagine that he heard these voices. The more he listened to them, the deeper he became engrossed in his experiences with the spirit world, the more of a “pneumatic” he grew to be, the more clearly and frequently he would hear these voices; indeed, he would actually see the forms of the evil spirits and experience the physical torments of their presence. If, in spite of all, he remained true to his God, the very worst might yet be in store for him. In a time of persecution, Satan and his minions developed their greatest strength. With abhorrence and dread the Christian came to know the cruelty of these mighty and ruthless enemies, either through the suffering of his friends or the torturous pain that racked his own tormented body.” What then was the power that enabled the Christians to overcome the evil spirit powers? They themselves have given us the answer: “It is a holy spirit, a spirit of God, that gives us that power.” The spirits of God came to them as they had come to the earlier Christian congregations. Thus Justin, speaking of the Christians of his own day, says: Justin, Dialogue 39, p. 132: “They receive gifts, each according to his merit, and are enlightened in the name of this Christ. One may receive a spirit of insight, another a spirit of counsel, a third a spirit of strength; still others receive spirits of healing, of foreknowledge, of teaching or of piety.” Justin, Dialogue 88, p. 318: “There are among us men and 4 [Weinel, p. 25, here cites Tat. Or. 15, p. 70.] women upon whom a spirit of God has bestowed gifts of grace.” In his dialogue with Tryphon the Jew, Justin says: Justin, Dialogue 82, p. 296: “The gifts of prophecy still exist among us, whereby you may see that the things formerly given to your lineage have now descended on us. And just as there were false prophets in the days when the holy prophets appeared among you, so there are false teachers among us today..” Those who wanted to expel communication with God’s spirits from the religion are taken to task by Irenaeus, who speaks from the standpoint of the entire Christian church of his time when he says of the sect of the Alogians: “They destroy the gift of the spirit that has been poured out to all of mankind in the latter days according to God’s will. They do not want to admit that form of evangelism described in the Gospel of John, where the Lord promised to send us the spirit world. And they reject not only the Gospel, but also the spirit of prophecy.” The term “latter days” used by Irenaeus was understood by the Christians to mean the time from the appearance of Christ until the end of the world. By “spirit of prophecy” the Christians understood a spirit that communicated God’s truth to mankind through a human medium, as was the rule in the early Christian congregations. According to early Christian doctrine, the truth could be learned only from God’s spirits. This doctrine was expressed in the maxim: “The truth must be learned where God’s gifts of grace are to be found.” Inasmuch as communication with the good spirit world was, and still is, governed by the same laws as communication with evil spirits, the teachings of both spirit worlds are outwardly similar.
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