Educated in a convent by Christian priests, he had early gained an
insight into the new teaching of Christianity; but he believed that
his philosophic culture had shown him that the seed of Christianity
had already germinated in Socrates and Plato. After he had made the
acquaintance of the Neo-Platonists, he found nothing to object to in
the recently-promulgated dogmas of Christianity. But he felt a
boundless hate against these Galilaeans who wished to appropriate
all the wisdom of the past ages and give it their own name. He
regarded them as thieves. The doctrine of Christ's Divine Sonship
seemed to him quite natural, for as a Pantheist he believed that the
souls of all men are born of God and have part in Him. He himself
acknowledged the dogma recently promulgated at Nicaea, that the Son
is of the same essence as the Father, although he interpreted, it in
his own way. As to miracles, they happened every day, and could be
imitated by magicians. He acknowledged the truth of the Fall of Man,
for Plato also had declared that the soul is imprisoned in matter
--in sinful matter, with which we must do battle. And this had been
confirmed by St. Paul's saying in the Epistle to the Romans, "The
good which I would, that I do not, but the evil, which I would not,
that I do," and again, "I delight in the law of God after the
inward man.
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