Note 599 — LECTURE XI. THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF MORAL EVIL. BY REV. JAMES MARTINEAU. (continued 2)

loc. cit. Michaelis adds a hint, which may perhaps be as appropriate in England as in Germany: “To the doctrine, which St. Jude inculcates by this quotation, that we ought not to speak evil of dignities, not even of the fallen angels, but that we should leave judgment to God, I have no objection. And I really think, that they transgress the bounds of propriety, who make it their business, either in the pulpit or in their writings, to represent the devil as an object of detestation; since, notwithstanding his fall, he is still a being of a superior order. This reminds me of a certain oriental sect, which Niebuhr met with in the neighbourhood of the river Zab, in Assyria, and which, for the same reason as that which I have just assigned, will not suffer any one to speak evil of the devil.”