96 
tianity more quences. They yielded like the rest. The Eleatic 
Eieatie. ontology was indeed too closely allied to Predesti- 
narianism to fail to fascinate the Doctor of Grace, and a great 
modification ensued in all the Latin world, of the Christian 
idea of the relation of man to the Supreme. The Eleatic and 
Christian elements, which had coalesced before the Nicene era, 
with, a predominance of that which was Christian, united from 
the time of St. Augustine, with a supremacy of that which 
was Eleatic. 
69. It would be a greatly interesting pursuit to trace onwards 
from St. Augustine^s time and the great Council of Orange to 
Progress of our own days the influence of that old heathen phi- 
Eieatic thought losophy, its tyranny in such minds as Prospers, 
m the West. an( } Bradwardine's, and Calvings ; its milder but not 
less real influence in Anselm, Bernard, or Jansenius. We 
should see the same forgetfulness of the true- always, the same 
domineering of the phenomenal. But it would be beside our 
present object. The Church (divinely guided, we believe) 
always resisted any development of the Eleatic spirit when it 
threatened to be formally heretical; yet the Church never 
exorcised it. And among the philosophers, as yet, the rela- 
tion of “ knowledge ” primarily to the true-always, and second- 
arily to the phenomenal, was critically undistinguished. 
70. Aquinas among the Scholastics, and Calvin among the 
moderns, give us perhaps the fullest view of the hold of the 
Eleatic system on the Christian theology. The former, of 
course, is more complete and exact — (indeed, the latter declines 
to think it out). From the old notion of the immoveableness 
of God, Aquinas deduces His eternity, His unchangeable- 
Medisevai ness .> His simplicity. This “ simplicity ” nominally 
and modern differs from the Eleatic, by asserting that it in- 
cludes Being, Thought, and even Act, instead of 
excluding them. But while thus asserting the Being and 
Intelligence of God, Aquinas is obliged to maintain that 
“ Power ” is not strictly to be ascribed to Him. In any 
compound Being, he says, Act stands related to Power : but 
God is a Simple Being; and His Act is to be regarded as 
Pure Act, one with, rather than a result of. Power. 
One philosophic error at the foundation of all this distress- 
ing verbiage is that Conscious Being may be subjected to 
analysis or definition, as if composite. It is forgotten that 
every Conscious Being has essentiality beyond the range of 
phenomena, and is in relation with the true-always. He is 
not a phenomenon, quoad essentiam , even to other 
tioa 0 errOT 3 d of conscious beings ; except in some sense to the Su- 
this philosophy, preme, Who is Governor of all, and, by the necessity 
