127. Redemption and the passion on the cross must be thought of as two distinct events; otherwise men's minds will ground like a ship on sandbanks or rocks and sink, steersman, captain, crew and all, that is to say, it will go astray in all matters which concern salvation from the Lord. Without a clear view of these two distinct events a person is like one who sees imaginary things in a dream, and draws inferences from things he takes to be real, but are in fact absurd. Or he is like someone walking at night-time, and when he grasps the branches of a tree, thinks it is someone's hair, so he comes closer and gets his own hair entangled. But although redemption and the passion on the cross are two distinct events, still they are combined in effecting salvation, since the Lord by His union with the Father, the result of His suffering on the cross, became the Redeemer for ever.