reconciling the Catholic Religion with Christian Verity, as the Athanasian Creed puts it. In the Christian Verity—that is, Theological Science,—of the 4th century there was much that was temporary, ignorant, Greek, as indeed there is in the science. Christian or otherwise, of our own day. I think it will help not only the historical investigator of the history of dogma, but also those who are fashioning the channel of our own beliefs to take serious account of the non-Greek Church of the East.
The spirit of Asceticism touches us from another side. In these cold climates the ascetic ideal has never been a really dominant factor. It is always necessary to make so much provision for the flesh that it is impossible to aim at forgetting its requirements. Even at Marseilles, in Cassian's day, it provoked merely ridicule when some of the monks attempted to live as the Egyptians lived in the warm, dry deserts. But the British Empire covers many lands and many climates, and it is the simple fact that in the land where Judas Thomas is fabled to have lived and taught the natural instincts of the
