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VI] PHILOSOPHY AND DOGMA 121 The preceding remarks upon the formulation of the Christian faith apply primarily to the Eastern or Hell- enic portion of the process, which was mainly con- cerned with the divine metaphysics of Christianity, that is, with defining the nature of Christ. The Latin West approved the results of this formulation, but for its own part, caring less for metaphysics than for life, it felt itself more earnestly concerned with the sinful- ness of man and the relation of the human will to God^s grace and foreknowledge. Here the moulder of men's thoughts was Augustine.* In the formulation of dogma, Greek philosophy passes into Christianity. Although the course of this in soorce. The one regards the magic-mystical effect of the out- ward act, eating of bread, or baptism, or penance done — a supersti- tion opposed to the spiritual regeneration set forth by Christ. The other attaches a quasi-magical efficiency to the mind's accurate acceptance and the mouth's correct enunciation of metaphysical propositions. Its source lay in the process, if not in the spirit, of doctrinal formulation. Equally with the first error, it ignores the actual condition and the needful spiritual regeneration of the soul. Moreover, the dogmatic definition of Christ's nature tended to lift him above the people's hearts, and caused them to set between them- selves and the heartless Christ the interceding mother-love of Mary and the mediatorship of all the saints. 1 Whatever one may think of these Pauline-Augustinian ques- tions, it must be admitted that as Nicene formulation held fast to the reality of Christ's mediating salvation, so Augustine's reason- ing held fast to man's need thereof ; while Pelagianism threatened man's need of Christ, just as Arianism threatened the reality of Christ's redeeming function. Such views as Augustine's, dark as they were, promoted among higher minds the passionate love of Christ, of God ; and perhaps promoted also devotion to all the mediating means and instruments — saints, martyrs, Virgin Mary, and the rest — by which the lowering intelligence of man was for some centories to link itself to the Kingdom of Heaven.