Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/102

84 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. the intermediate superhuman beings who seemed nearer to men than any member of the Trinity. Such beliefs, held not only by the driven crowd, but by its guides and drivers, demanded systematiz- ing, that they might be tabulated as a part of the hierarchically authorized religion. By what means could this be accomplished ? The materials were everywhere, huge, unformed, wavering. Whence should come the schematic principle ? Was it to be juristic, like the Roman, Pauline, legalistic work of Augustine? That was too austere and intol- erant. Latin Christianity had already taken its meta- physics from the Hellenic East. In the sphere of transcendental reason and fantasy, Hellenism always held adaptable constructive principles. Its last great creation, Neo-platonism, was potent to gather and arrange within itself the manifold elements of latter- day paganism. The Neo-platonic categories might be altered in name and import, and yet the scheme remain a scheme. And its constructive principle of the transmission of life and power from the ultimate divine Source downward through orders of mediating beings unto men, might readily be adapted to the Chris- tian God and His ministering angels. The dogmatic formulation of Christianity set God and the Mediator, Christ, beyond the reach of man's imagination and man's heart, both of which needed intermediate con- ceptions, as of angelic and saintly mediators. God's removal was so great there must even be a series of these. The needed scheme would naturally spring from Hellenism in its latest and most readily adap- tive system, which was also nearest to the moods of i