Section 452
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 421 into being from that which was not, he also wrought her into a holy spouse, a completely sacred and holy temple, for himself and the Father. Which, indeed, himself plainly declares and professes in the following words : * I will dwell in them and walk in them, and will be their God and they shall be my people.' And such, indeed, is the perfect and purified mind, having been made such from the beginning, as to bear the image of the celestial Word. By the envy and jealousy of the malignant daemon, however, she began to be fond of pleasures and fond of evil, by her own voluntary choice, and then the Divinity retiring from her, as one destitute of her protector, she became an easy captive, and easily exposed to the insidious plots of those who had long envied her felicity. And thus assailed by the batteries and machines of her invisible and spiritual enemies, she fell a hideous carcase. So that there was not one stone of her virtue remained standing, and she lay com pletely and entirely dead upon the earth, totally stripped and destitute of her usual and natural ideas of God. But as she thus lay fallen and prostrate, she that had been made after the im ige of God, it was not that wild boar of the forest that we see, but some destructive daemon and spiritual wild beasts that laid her waste. These, inflaming her with passions, as with the burn ing darts of their own iniquity, set fire to the really divine sanc tuary of God, and profaned the tabernacle of his name to the ground. Then burying the unhappy one with heaps of earth, they totally destroyed every hope of her deliverance. But the divine and saving Word, who careth for her, after she had en dured the deserved punishment of her sins, again recovered and restored her to the full confidence of the all-gracious mercy of the Father. First, then, she gained the favour of the supreme imperial rulers themselves, and with the whole world, was de livered from the impious tyrants, those destructive and tremen dous enemies of all, by the intervention of those most excellent and divinely favoured princes. Then also, the men who were his (Christ's) familiar friends, those formerly consecrated to him for life, and who, concealed as in a storm of afflictions, had neverthe less been secretly protected by their God ; these were led forth by him to the light and honoured, deservedly by the munificence