Section 454
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 4'23 the vestibules of the temple. Others, however, he has supported by the first pillars which are placed without, around the qua drangular hall, by initiating them in the first elements of the lite ral sense of the four gospels. Then he also stations around, on both sides the royal temple, those who are yet catechumens,* and that are yet making progress, and improvement, though not very far separated from the inmost view of divine things, enjoyed by the faithful. Receiving from among these, the souls that are cleansed like gold, by the divine washing, he likewise supports and strengthens these, with columns far better than those exter nal ones, viz., by the inner mysteries and hidden doctrines of the Scriptures. He also illuminates them by the openings, to admit the light, adorning the whole temple with one grand vestibule of adoration to the one only God, the universal Sovereign. Ex hibiting, however, as the second splendour, the light of Christ, and the Holy Spirit on each side of the Father's authority ,-f and dis playing in the rest, throughout the whole of the building, the abundance and the exceeding great excellence of the clearness and the brilliancy of truth in every part. Having also selected every where, and from every quarter, the living and moving, and well prepared stones of the mind, he has built a grand and truly royal edifice of all, splendid and filled with light within and with* Eusebius here gives the different classes, into which the people were divided previous to a full admission. The first, the indiscriminate multitude, compared to the outer wall ; the second, the catechumens, or those who by a course of instruc tion were preparing ; and finally, those that were called the competentes, or the can didates for baptism. j-That the learned reader may have a comment on these words, we here trans cribe the words of a scholiast, found in the Mazarine manuscript, used by Valesius, and appended to the passage: avSp**-!, T<