ABSTRACT
Augustine writes in The Trinity (IV.24):1 "Since, then, we were not fit to take hold of things eternal, and since the foulness of sins weighed us down, which we had contracted by the love of temporal things, and which were implanted in us as it were naturally, from the root of mortality, it was needful that we should be cleansed. But cleansed we could not be, so as to be tempered together with things eternal [ut contemperaremur aeternis], except it were through things temporal [per temporalia], wherewith we were already tempered together and held fast [qualibus jam contemperati tenebamur]. For health is at the opposite extreme from disease; but the intermediate process of healing [media curatio] does not lead us to perfect health, unless it has some congruity with the disease. Things temporal that are useless merely deceive the sick; things temporal that are useful take up those that need healing, and pass them on [trajiciunt] healed, to things eternal. And the rational mind, as when cleansed it owes contemplation to things eternal; so, when needing cleansing, owes faith to things temporal. One even of those who were formerly esteemed wise men among the Greeks has said, The truth stands to faith in the same relation in which eternity stands to that which has a beginning [Quantum ad id quod ortum est aeternitas valet, tantum adfidem Veritas]." Truth is to faith as eternity is to that which has begun.
