Chapter XXXV.—Of the Fact that the Mystery of a Mediator Was Made Known to Those Who Lived in Ancient Times by the Agency of Prophecy, as It is Now Declared to Us in the Gospel. 53. Wherefore, seeing that Christ Himself is that Wisdom of God by whom all things were created, and considering that no rational intelligences, whether of angels or of men, receive wisdom except by participation in this Wisdom wherewith we are united by that Holy Spirit through whom charity is shed abroad in our hearts654 (which Trinity at the same time constitutes one God), Divine Providence, having respect to the interests of mortal men whose time-bound life was held engaged in things which rise into being and die,655 decreed that this same Wisdom of God, assuming into the unity of His person the (nature of) man, in which He might be born according to the conditions of time, and live and die and rise again, should utter and perform and bear and sustain things congruous to our sal- vation; and thus, in exemplary fashion, show at once to men on earth the way for a return to heaven, and to those angels who are above us, the way to retain their position in heaven.656 For unless, also, in the nature of the reasonable soul, and under the conditions of an existence in time, something came newly into being,—that is to say, unless that began to be which previously was not,—there could never be any passing from a life of utter corruption and folly into one of wisdom and true goodness. And thus, as truth in the contemplative lives in the enjoyment of things eternal, while faith in the believing is what is due to things which are made, man is purified through that faith which is conversant with temporal things, in order to his being made capable of receiving the truth of things eternal. For one of their noblest intellects, the philosopher Plato, in the treatise which is named the Timæus, speaks also to this effect: “As eternity is to that which is made, so truth to faith.” Those two belong to the things above,—namely, eternity and truth; these two belong to the things be- low,—namely, that which is made and faith. In order, therefore, that we may be called off from the lowest objects, and led up again to the highest, and in order also that what is made may attain to the eternal, we must come through faith to truth. And because all contraries are reduced to unity by some middle factor, and because also the iniquity of time alienated us from the righteousness of eternity, there was need of some mediatorial righteousness of a temporal nature; which mediatizing factor might be temporal on the side of those lowest 654 Rom. v. 5. 655 In rebus orientibus et occidentibus occupata tenebatur. 656 Fieret et deorsum hominibus exemplum redeundi et eis qui sursum sunt angelis exemplum manendi. Of the Fact that the Mystery of a Mediator Was Made Known to Those Who Lived in Ancient Times by the Agency of Prophecy, as It is Now Declared to Us in the Gospel. 220 Of the Fact that the Mystery of a Mediator Was Made Known to Those Who Lived…