. Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern. s assumption it was possibleto say that the same real substance couldexist in three, or indeed in any number ofpersons. In the case of God, the dogma-builders were careful to say, essence is one with existence, and there-fore in Him the individuals are as real as the universal. Platonism,having lent the formula for the Trinity, became the favorite philoso-phy of many of the Church fathers, and so introduced into Christianthought and life the Platonic dualism, that sharp distinction betweenthe temporal and the eternal which belittles
. Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern. s assumption it was possibleto say that the same real substance couldexist in three, or indeed in any number ofpersons. In the case of God, the dogma-builders were careful to say, essence is one with existence, and there-fore in Him the individuals are as real as the universal. Platonism,having lent the formula for the Trinity, became the favorite philoso-phy of many of the Church fathers, and so introduced into Christianthought and life the Platonic dualism, that sharp distinction betweenthe temporal and the eternal which belittles the practical life andglorifies the contemplative. This distinction, as aggravated by Neo-Platonism, further affectedEastern Christianity in the sixth century, and Western Christianityin the ninth, chiefly through the writings of (the ) DionysiusAreopagita, and gave rise to Christian mysticism. It was then erectedinto a rule of conduct through the efforts of Pope Gregory VII., whostrove to subject practical and civil life entirely to the control of. Ab^lard l8 ABELARD ecclesiastics and monks, standing for contemplative, supernatural latter included all purely mental work, which more and moretended to concentrate itself upon religion and confine itself to theclergy. In this way it came to be considered an utter disgrace forany man engaged in mental work to take any part in the institutionsof civil life, and particularly to marry. He might indeed enter intoillicit relations, and rear a family of nephews** and nieces,** with-out losing prestige; but to marry was to commit suicide. Such wasthe condition of things in the days of Abelard. But while Platonism, with its real universals, was celebrating itsascetic, unearthly triumphs in the West, Aristotelianism, which main-tains that the individual is the real, was making its way in the as heresy beyond the limits of the Catholic Church, in thefifth and sixth centuries, in the persons of Nestorius and ot
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