THE MEDIEVAL M! 65 



Fathers to co-ordinate the Old Testament with the 

 New, and both with the prevalent modes of thought. 

 What in the Scriptures or in the world of nature con- 

 forms to the Christian scheme as interpreted by each 

 Father may be received as fact ; what does not so 

 agree is to be understood in a symbolic sense. Here 

 we have the Christian equivalent to the idealism of 

 the Platonists. 



Finally, to understand the patristic, and through 

 it the mediaeval, mind, it is necessary to appreciate 

 the overwhelming motive introduced by the Chris- 

 tian conception of sin, the need of redemption, and 

 the fears and hopes of the realistic Jewish-Christian 

 ideas of heaven and hell the need of mediation to 

 obtain salvation to enter the one, and the fear of 

 damnation in the flames of the other. The pagan 

 world itself had become less self-confident. The 

 decadence of the race had carried mankind far from 

 the bright Greek spirit of life, and the stern Roman 

 joy in home and State. Men were coming to rely 

 more on authority in State and thought, were seized 

 with unrest and vague fears for their safety in this 

 world and the hereafter. The phase recurs at 

 various epochs of history. Even before the ministry 

 of Christ, in Palestine and wherever Jewish influence 

 was felt, eyes were looking for a catastrophic coming 

 of the Kingdom of God, a conception which made 

 the Christian faith of the Apostolic age largely a matter 

 of eschatology, and its rule of life but an interims 

 Ethik a short preparation for the triumphant Second 

 Coming. Perhaps in the patristic age the end of the 

 world had receded a little into the future ; but the 

 day of judgment was still very near, and to each man 



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