Isidore’s view of the past was as simple and dogmatic as his view of the universe at large; in fact it was conditioned by his world-view. The acceptance of Christianity and the new scale of values thus introduced had of necessity involved the projection of the new interests into the past. The legendary background of the new religion had accelerated the process. The past, as seen by writers of the pagan civilization and as reflecting the interests of that civilization, now became of no service, and, as a whole, was dropped. The pagan histories were regarded as written by men whose point of view was wholly false and mischievous, even though sometimes their facts might be correct. They were approached by the Christian re-adjusters of history in much the same spirit as that in which the modern historian goes to the medieval chronicle, though with an opposite aim: the modern historian is after what is social and human, while Augustine and Orosius were after illustrations of the ways of God to man.[133] [133] _Cf._ Isidore’s attitude: “The histories of the gentiles do no harm where they tell of what is profitable,” 1, 41, 1. See p. 103. By Isidore’s time, then, the Christian view of the past had become completely de-secularized. Biblical tradition dominated all historical thinking. On the six days of creation was centered special attention. This point, at which the natural emanated from the supernatural, fascinated the medieval thinker as the doctrine of evolution does the modern. It formed the touch-stone by the aid of which was interpreted not only the material world,[134] but also the course of history. In parallelism with the six days and the six periods in man’s life, the history of the world was divided with absolute definiteness into six ages. Isidore himself was living in the sixth and last of these, “the residue of which was known to God alone”.[135] His view of the past had no perspective; or rather, it had an inverted perspective, because the increasing confusion of every department of the sublunar world led him to dwell in preference upon the earlier time when the course of history was confined to the pure stream of Hebrew tradition, when the supernatural manifested itself more frequently, and when even the names of personages were charged with prophetic meaning. [134] See p. 28 and note. [135] 5, 38, 5; 5, 39.