f enthusiasm, or to the sacred
savour of accomplished duty.[149]"

We may now return to the Christian Platonists. We find in Methodius
the interesting doctrine that the indwelling Christ constantly repeats
His passion in remembrance, "for not otherwise could the Church
continually conceive believers, and bear them anew through the bath of
regeneration, unless Christ were repeatedly to die, emptying Himself
for the sake of each individual." "Christ must be born mentally
([Greek: moetos]) in every individual," and each individual saint,
by participating in Christ, "is born as a Christ." This is exactly the
language of Eckhart and Tauler, and it is first clearly heard in the
mouth of Methodius.[150] The new features are the great prominence
given to _immanence_--the mystical union as an _opus operatum_, and
the individualistic conception of the relation of Christ to the soul.

Of the Greek Fathers who followed Athanasius, I have only room to
mention Gregory of Nyssa, who defends the historical incarnation in
true mystical fashion by an appeal to spiritual experience. "We all
believe that the Divine is in everything, pervading and embracing it,
and dwelling in it. Why then do men take offence at the dispensation
of the mystery taught by the Incarnation of God, who is not, even now,
outside of mankind?... If the _form_ of the Divine presence is not now
the same, we are as much agreed that God is among us to-day, as that
He was in the world then." He argues in another place that all other
species of spiritual beings must have had their Incarnations of
Christ; a doctrine which was afterwards condemned, but which seems to
follow necessarily from the Logos doctrine. These arguments show very
clearly that for the Greek theologians Christ is a cosmic principle,
immanent in the world, though not confined by it; and that the scheme
of salvation is regarded as part of the constitution of the universe,
which is animated and sustained by the same Power who was fully
manifested in the Incarnation.

The question has been much debated, whether the influence of Persian
and Indian thought can be traced in Neoplatonism, or whether that
system was purely Greek.[151] It is a quite hopeless task to try to
disentangle the various strands of thought which make up the web of
Alexandrianism. But there is no doubt that the philosophers of Asia
were held in reverence at this period. Origen, in justifying an
esoteric mystery-religion for the educat