Chapter 7.—In What Manner We are Gathered from Many into One Through One Mediator.

11. This mystery, this sacrifice, this priest, this God, before He was sent and came, being made of a woman—of Him, all those things which appeared to our fathers in a sacred and mystical way by angelical miracles, or which were done by the fathers themselves, were similitudes; in order that every creature by its acts might speak in some way of that One who was to be, in whom there was to be salvation in the recovery of all from death. For because by the wickedness of ungodliness we had recoiled and fallen away in discord from the one true and supreme God, and had in many things become vain, being distracted through many things and cleaving fast to many things; it was needful, by the decree and command of God in His mercy, that those same many things should join in proclaiming the One that should come, and that One should come so proclaimed by these many things, and that these many things should join in witnessing that this One had come; and that so, freed from the burden of these many things, we should come to that One, and dead as we were in our souls by many sins, and destined to die in the flesh on account of sin, that we should love that One who, without sin, died in the flesh for us; and by believing in Him now raised again, and by rising again with Him in the spirit through faith, that we should be justified by being made one in the one righteous One; and that we should not despair of our own resurrection in the flesh itself, when we consider that the one Head had gone before us the many members; in whom, being now cleansed through faith, and then renewed by sight, and through Him as mediator reconciled to God, we are to cleave to the One, to feast upon the One, to continue one.

CAPUT VII.

11. Quomodo per unum Mediatorem ex multis colligamur in unum. Hoc sacramentum, hoc sacrificium, hic sacerdos, hic Deus, antequam missus veniret, factus ex femina, omnia quae sacrate atque mystice patribus nostris per angelica miracula apparuerunt, sive quae per ipsos facta sunt, similitudines hujus fuerunt, ut omnis creatura factis quodam modo loqueretur unum futurum in quo esset salus universorum a morte reparandorum. Quia enim ab uno vero Deo et summo per impietatis iniquitatem resilientes et dissonantes defluxeramus, et evanueramus in multa, discissi per multa et inhaerentes in multis: oportebat nutu et imperio Dei miserantis, ut ipsa multa venturum conclamarent unum; et a multis conclamatus veniret unus, et multa contestarentur venisse unum; et a multis exonerati veniremus ad unum, et multis peccatis in anima mortui, et propter peccatum in carne morituri, amaremus sine peccato mortuum in carne pro nobis unum; et in resuscitatum credentes, et cum illo per fidem spiritu resurgentes, justificaremur in uno justo facti unum: nec in ipsa carne nos resurrecturos desperaremus, cum multa membra intueremur praecessisse nos caput unum; in quo nunc per fidem mundati, et tunc per speciem 0896 redintegrati, et per Mediatorem Deo reconciliati haereamus uni, fruamur uno, permaneamus unum.