Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

320 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMnot from the teaching of Pythagoras, at any rate fromhis time, through the stream of Greek philosophy.St. Augustine, who was almost the contemporary ofPorphyrius, reproached him with having been deterredfrom becoming a Christian by this very doctrine,1 forhe could not give up his cardinal tenet that all contactwith the body was to be shunned, in order thatthe soul may dwell blessed with God.7. This error no doubt was radical in the philosophy.The unity of the whole human race, aspossessing reason, which was the ground of Stoicand Neoplatonic doctrine as to fraternity and equality,was falsely exalted by it into a divine unity by theassertion that reason was part of the divine mind. Itwas only by this fiction that it could be set againstthe Christian unity founded on the gift of the HolyGhost, which was bestowed upon the members ofChrist as the fruit of the Incarnation. This deificationof reason is the completion of the contrast whichwe have been noting between the philosophy and thefaith. It sets np nature against grace, as by assertinga natural affinity and identity of essence betweenthe human mind and the divine it attempts to give toman in his natural condition all that union with Godwhich in the supernatural order is conferred upon himas a gratuitous gift, the effect of an unspeakable loveon the part of God in becoming man.8. The summing up of the whole is this. In thephilosophy the Primal Being is the cause of things bytheir being produced out of him, though not voluntarily,1 DC, Ciritate Dei, x. 28. " Contemnis enim emn proptt-r corpusex fannina acceptum." 29. " Ideo viluit superbis Dens ille magister,quia Verbum caro fact inn est, et habitavit in nobis : ut parum sitmiseris quod aegrotant, nisi se in ipsa etiam segritudine extollant, etde medicina qua sanari poterant, erubescant."