 According to scholar and translator Michael Parker, "crucial to any understanding of Miłosz’s work is his complex relationship to Catholicism".His writing is filled with allusions to Christian figures, symbols, and theological ideas, though Miłosz was closer to Gnosticism, or what he called Manichaeism, in his personal beliefs, viewing the universe as ruled by an evil whose influence human beings must try to escape.From this perspective, "he can at once admit that the world is ruled by necessity, by evil, and yet still find hope and sustenance in the beauty of the world.