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Chapter XXXIII.—How the Church of our Saviour, the New Jerusalem prophesied of in Scripture, was built.
This was the emperor’s letter; and his directions were at once carried into effect. Accordingly, on the very spot which witnessed the Saviour’s sufferings, a new Jerusalem was constructed, over against the one so celebrated of old, which, since the foul stain of guilt brought on it by the murder of the Lord, had experienced the last extremity of desolation, the effect of Divine judgment on its impious people. It was opposite this city that the emperor now began to rear a monument to the Saviour’s victory over death, with rich and lavish magnificence. And it may be that this was that second and new Jerusalem spoken of in the predictions of the prophets, 3266 concerning which such abundant testimony is given in the divinely inspired records.
First of all, then, he adorned the sacred cave itself, as the chief part of the whole work, and the hallowed monument at which the angel radiant with light had once declared to all that regeneration which was first manifested in the Saviour’s person.
[Apparently referring (says Valesius) to Rev. xxi. 2: “And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven” &c.; an extraordinary, nay, almost ludicrous application of Scripture, though perhaps characteristic of the author’s age.—Bag.] And it may be said characteristic of Eusebius himself, for it is not his only sin in this regard.